The science is scuttled: Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth resort to libeling Spencer and Christy

NOTE: This will be a “sticky” top post for awhile, new posts appear below this one. UPDATE: Josh weighs in with a new cartoon.

I was hoping to have a quiet holiday weekend away from WUWT doing some household chores. Apparently that isn’t in the cards.

Below, I have reposted an essay from Dr. Roger Pielke Senior regarding an opinion piece published in The Daily Climate attacking Dr. John Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer for their ongoing work in satellite based measurement of the Earth’s temperature. Dr. Pielke does an excellent job of summarizing his rebuttal points, and I’ll point out that he’s used some very strong unconventional language in the title of his piece.

One point Dr. Pielke touches on related to an orbital decay correction applied to the UAH satellite measurement comes from his first hand experience, and I urge readers to read it fully to get the history. One line from the op-ed in The Daily Climate bothered me in particular:

Over the years, Spencer and Christy developed a reputation for making serial mistakes that other scientists have been forced to uncover.

This my friends, is breathtaking for its sheer arrogance, agenda, and the scuttling of the scientific process in one sentence.

The entire process of science is about building on early incomplete knowledge with new knowledge, and discarding old knowledge in favor of new evidence that is better understood and supported by observational evidence. All scientists make mistakes, it is part of the learning process of science. Any scientist who believes he/she hasn’t made mistakes, has never made a correction, or hasn’t built upon the mistakes of others to improve the science is deluding themselves.

And that crack about “…mistakes that other scientists have been forced to uncover.” is ludicrous. By the very nature of the scientific process, scientists work to uncover flaws in the work of others, and when mistakes and irrelevancies are burned away by this process, what is left in the crucible of scientific inquiry is regarded as the pure product.

I could say the same thing about GISS related to Hansen and Gavin’s Y2K temperature problem which required a correction, also something other scientists were “forced to uncover”.

In thinking of Einstein’s mistakes, one immediately recalls what Einstein (in a conversation with George Gamow2) called the biggest blunder he had made in his life: the introduction of the cosmological constant. After Einstein had completed the formulation of his theory of space, time, and gravitation—the general theory of relativity—he turned in 1917 to a consideration of the spacetime structure of the whole universe. He then encountered a problem. Einstein was assuming that, when suitably averaged over many stars, the universe is uniform and essentially static, but the equations of general relativity did not seem to allow a time-independent solution for a universe with a uniform distribution of matter. So Einstein modified his equations, by including a new term involving a quantity that he called the cosmological constant. Then it was discovered that the universe is not static, but expanding. Einstein came to regret that he had needlessly mutilated his original theory. It may also have bothered him that he had missed predicting the expansion of the universe.

For those reading who are prone to eye rolling, I would never presume to compare anyone in climate science to Einstein, but there’s an important and germane science history lesson here worth noting that parallels what has happened with the Spencer and Braswell paper challenging climate models and climate sensitivity.

Consider Edwin Hubble’s discovery of an expanding universe based on observational evidence. Einstein created a mathematical model of the universe, and as Wikipedia reports: Earlier, in 1917, Albert Einstein had found that his newly developed theory of general relativity indicated that the universe must be either expanding or contracting. Unable to believe what his own equations were telling him, Einstein introduced a cosmological constant (a “fudge factor“) to the equations to avoid this “problem”.

Einstein didn’t launch a tirade in the press. Instead, Einstein was humble enough to consider that he’d made a mistake and modified his mathematical model to fit the new observation. He later came to regret the cosmological constant, but it demonstrates his ability to assimilate new observational evidence.

Like Spencer and Braswell, Einstein too got his share of public drubbing for his work. Hitler commissioned a group of 100 top scientists in Germany write a book called “Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein” (Hundred authors against Einstein).

Einstein was asked: `Doesn’t it bother you Dr Einstein that you’ve got so many scientists against you?’

And he said: `It doesn’t take 100 scientists to prove me wrong, it takes a single fact’. Source

And that is the way of science. Opinions don’t matter, certificates, awards, and accolades don’t matter. Only the provable evidence matters. In the case of Spencer and Braswell, they too bring observational evidence to bear that may require adjustments to mathematical models. The difference here has been that rather than take the path of reconsideration, and arguing using the science following the peer review process, Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth ignore that process and resort to a diatribe of ad hominem attacks, which in my opinion with that one sentence referencing to “…serial mistakes that other scientists have been forced to uncover.”, crosses the threshold from argument to libel.

Apparently, it is impossible for them to consider observational evidence supporting a lower climate sensitivity, and thus they’ve scuttled the scientific process of correcting and building on new knowledge in favor of a tabloid style attack.

Hatchet Job On John Christy and Roy Spencer By Kevin Trenberth, John Abraham and Peter Gleick

There is an opinion article at Daily Climate that perpetuates serious misunderstandings regarding the research of Roy Spencer and John Christy. It also is an inappropriate (and unwarranted) person attack on their professional integrity. Since I have first hand information on this issue, I am using my weblog to document the lack of professional decorum by Keven Trenberth, John Abraham and Peter Gleick.

published on the Daily Climate on September 2 2011. The article is by Kevin Trenberth, John Abraham, and Peter Gleick.

Their headline reads

In his bid to cast doubts on the seriousness of climate change, University of Alabama’s Roy Spencer creates a media splash but claims a journal’s editor-in-chief.

The science doesn’t hold up.

I am reproducing the text of the article below with my comments inserted.

The text of their article starts with [highlights added]

The widely publicized paper by Roy Spencer and Danny Braswell, published in the journal Remote Sensing in July, has seen a number of follow-ups and repercussions.

Unfortunately this is not the first time the science conducted by Roy Spencer and colleagues has been found lacking. The latest came Friday in a remarkable development, when the journal’s editor-in-chief, Wolfgang Wagner, submitted his resignation and apologized for the paper.

As we noted on RealClimate.org when the paper was published, the hype surrounding Spencer’s and Braswell’s paper was impressive; unfortunately the paper itself was not. Remote Sensing is a fine journal for geographers, but it does not deal much with atmospheric and climate science, and it is evident that this paper did not get an adequate peer review. It should have received an honest vetting.

My Comment:

The claim that a journal on remote sensing, which publishes paper on the climate system “but…does not deal much with atmospheric and climate science”, is not climate science is obviously incorrect. This trivialization of the journal in this manner illustrates the inappropriately narrow view of the climate system by the authors. That the paper “should have received an honest vetting”, I assume means that they or their close colleagues should have reviewed it (and presumably recommended rejection).

The Trenberth et al text continues

Friday that truth became apparent. Kevin Trenberth received a personal note of apology from both the editor-in-chief and the publisher of Remote Sensing. Wagner took this unusual and admirable step after becoming aware of the paper’s serious flaws. By resigning publicly in an editorial posted online, Wagner hopes that at least some of this damage can be undone.

My Comment:

My son has posted on this (see). I agree; for Kevin Trenberth to receive an apology is quite bizarre.

Their text continues

Unfortunately this is not the first time the science conducted by Roy Spencer and colleagues has been found lacking.

Spencer, a University of Alabama, Huntsville, climatologist, and his colleagues have a history of making serious technical errors in their effort to cast doubt on the seriousness of climate change. Their errors date to the mid-1990s, when their satellite temperature record reportedly showed the lower atmosphere was cooling. As obvious and serious errors in that analysis were made public, Spencer and Christy were forced to revise their work several times and, not surprisingly, their findings agree better with those of other scientists around the world: the atmosphere is warming.

My Comment:

This statement of the history is a fabrication and is an ad hominem attack. The errors in their analysis were all minor and were identified as soon as found. Such corrections are a normal part of the scientific process as exemplified recently in the finding of a substantial error in the ERA-40 reanalysis;

My direct experience with the UAH-MSU data analysis has been over more than a decade. I will share two examples here of the rigor with which they assess and correct, when needed, their analyses.

First, at one of the CCSP 1.1 committee meetings that I attended [for the report Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences (in Chicago)], an error was brought to the attention of Roy Spencer and John Christy by the lead investigators of the RSS MSU project (Mears and Wentz).

The venue at which this error was brought up (in our committee meeting) was a clear attempt to discredit John and Roy’s research as we sat around the table. Roy found a fix within a few minutes, and concluded it was minor. This fix was implemented when he returned to Alabama.

When I saw how this “exposure” of an error was presented (in front of all of us, instead of in private via e-mail or phone call), I became convinced that a major goal of this committee (under the leadership of Tom Karl) was to discredit them. I told John this at a break right after this occurred. At a later meeting (in December 2008),

In order to further examine the robustness of the Christy and Spencer analyses, in 2006 I asked Professor Ben Herman, who is an internationally well-respect expert in atmospheric remote sensing, to examine the Christy and Spencer UAH MSU and the Wentz and Mears RSS MSU data analyses. He worked with a student to do this and completed the following study

“Comparison of MSU data with the reduced Radiosonde Atmospheric Temperature Products for Assessing Climate radiosonde data set indicates that RSS’s method (use of climate model) of determining diurnal effects is likely overestimating the correction in the LT channel. Diurnal correction signatures still exist in the RSS LT time series and are likely affecting the long-term trend with a warm bias.”

The robustness of the UAH MSU [the Christy and Spencer analysis] is summarized in the text

“Figure 5 shows that 10-year trends center on the mid-1994’s through 10 year trends centered on the mid-1995’s indicates the RSS−Sonde trends are significantly different from zero where the Sonde−UAH trends are not. In addition, for 10-year trends centered on late-1999 through 10- years trend centered on early 2000 the RSS−Sonde trends are significantly different from zero where Sonde−UAH are marginally not. Another key feature in the RSS−Sonde series is the rapid departure in trend magnitude from trends centered on 1995 through trends centered on late-1999 where the Sonde−UAH magnitude in trends is nearly constant. These features are consistent with the diurnal correction signatures previously discussed. These findings [in] the RSS method for creating the diurnal correction (use of a climate model) is [the] cause for discrepancies between RSS and UAH databases in the LT channel.”

The latest Trenberth et al article is a continuation of this ad hominem effort to discredit John Christy and Roy Spencer.

The Trenberth et al article continues

Over the years, Spencer and Christy developed a reputation for making serial mistakes that other scientists have been forced to uncover. Last Thursday, for instance, the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres published a study led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory climate scientist Ben Santer. Their findings showed that Christy erred in claiming that recent atmospheric temperature trends are not replicated in models.

This trend continues: On Tuesday the journal Geophysical Research Letters will publish a peer-reviewed study by Texas A&M University atmospheric scientist Andrew Dessler that undermines Spencer’s arguments about the role of clouds in the Earth’s energy budget.

We only wish the media would cover these scientific discoveries with similar vigor and enthusiasm that they displayed in tackling Spencer’s now-discredited findings.

My Comment:

Roy Spencer is hardly discredited because there are papers that disagree with his analysis and conclusions. This will sort itself out in the peer-reviewed literature after he has an opportunity to respond with a follow on paper, and/or a Comment/Reply exchange. Similarly, John Christy can respond to the Santer et al paper that is referred to in the Trenberth et al article.

What is disturbing, however, in the Trenberth et al article is its tone and disparagement of two outstanding scientists. Instead of addressing the science issues, they resort to statements such as Spencer and Christy making “serial mistakes”. This is truly a hatchet job and will only further polarize the climate science debate

When you see how they treat errors in the work of others it makes it apparent why The Team comes up with statements like why should we share our data with you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it. Talk about projection, and a completely disgusting approach to science. Scientific method it’s not, nor does it speak to a mature persons attitude towards self evaluation, it’s more like a petulant, spoiled child’s. Post normal indeed.

It appears that Trenberth is extremely angry. Now why would that be? If, as he says, Spencer has made obvious mistakes then you would think he would be happy. All he has to do is point them out in a comment to the journal and he would embarrass Spencer and all should be just fine. But, that’s not what happened.
In my experience when I see someone as angry as Trenberth it means he realizes that Spencer just may be right. It’s agonizing for him to consider that he may have been wrong all these years. His travesty of an energy budget and missing heat probably had him in a stressful condition. And now, the realization that he might be wrong is just too much for his ego to take. So, he reverts to his basic instincts and attacks.
Trenberth has made a huge mistake. He has let his emotion control him. He has essentially admitted that even he knows Spencer has good points.

My sincere thanks to Dr. Pielke for calling a spade a spade (or in this instance a hatchet a hatchet). Unfortunately, this is not the first instance in which Trenberth has mustered a team of truth-distorters in order to promulgate a fact-free “reconstruction” that is tantamount to a hatchet job.
I’m still waiting to see the retraction and apology from Trenberth, Mann, Schmidt, Mandia and Tobis for their January 2011 co-written “reconstruction” of Chris Landsea’s 2004 withdrawal from participation in AR4.
Details at Kevin Trenberth: false memory syndrome?

Trenberth has published papers saying more than half of the expected energy accumulation is missing – at least two papers and at least one Climategate email.
So he actually agrees with Dr. Spencer.
Kevin “missing energy” Trenberth and Roy “it clearly looks like the missing energy was never there” Spencer are on the same team. Its just that Kevin can’t admit it or he will not be invited to the all the great global warming parties any more (and there are lots of them).

Funny thing about Einstein, even when he made his “greatest blunder” he was still right. Well, not quite right, but it later turned out that the cosmological constant was useful for a describing a real behavior of the evolution of the Universe. Just not at all in the way Einstein intended. It turned out that the cosmological constant could actually usefully describe a universe which was not only expanding but accelerating in it’s expansion. So Einstein actually added an important term to the equations. He just gave it the wrong value, one which made the universe fixed, instead of expanding at an accelerating rate.
So mistakes in science aren’t just normal, they actually are quite important, as even your mistakes can turn out to open up important avenues of investigation. This has definitely been the case with the atmospheric temps, which while they do indeed now show warming, mostly as a consequence of the elevated temperatures post-98 El Nino (that is, the passage of time), not due to corrections made to them as implied by the Trenberth et al article, they have turned out to give strong indications that the surface temperature record is not translating into sufficient warming aloft according to models, thereby indicating that the models fit to surface temperatures almost certainly get their fit for the wrong physical reason, not because they reasonably represent the climate system.

“This trend continues: On Tuesday the journal Geophysical Research Letters will publish a peer-reviewed study by Texas A&M University atmospheric scientist Andrew Dessler that undermines Spencer’s arguments about the role of clouds in the Earth’s energy budget.”
Is this how papers are announced in climate science?! I feel like I reading the promo for some TV wrestling cage match pay-per-view. Not only is this tacky, unseemly, and unprofessional, but it prejudges the conclusions of a paper that isn’t even published yet!
Of course, when someone like Trenberth wishes to make a total idiot of himself, I say – just get out of his way [LOL]…

Political tools the warmists use to scuttle scientific process are more consistent with a religious cult dealing with dissenters questioning the dogma.
They are not climate scientists, more like climate scientologists.

Anthony, this is excellently written and starkly exposes the machinations of the climate cabal. I had thought that climate issues were beginning to simmer down, and hoping that the scientific discourse was about to become more normal and civil (following the lead of Judith Curry).
Unfortunately, the Team and their hangers-on have been allowing their self-righteous grievances to fester, and this outburst (and I agree it is libelous) is caused by an eruption of their suppurating intellectual pus. That they have sunk to this level is outrageous.
Anyone who has, in following these issues for the last three years, visited various websites and been exposed to the past musings and rantings of Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth will recognize that at times they can be parsimonious with the truth, to put it charitably.

I’m sure The Daily Climate will print anything from Dr. Pielke or Spencer to make sure all sides of the story are heard. After all, http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/about says in part:

The Daily Climate does not espouse a political point of view on the news but instead reports the truth to the best of our ability. Editorial integrity is the foundation of our mission.
Establishing the trust of our readers is a fundamental editorial objective; all of our reporting, editing and publishing adheres to the highest standards of journalism, including honesty, accuracy, balance and objectivity.
…the Daily Climate’s aggregation represents the news of the day, irrespective of the opinion or viewpoint expressed, or whether or not material in the article is consistent with our understanding of current science. We often publish several articles from different newspapers covering the same story, as well as multiple editorials and op-eds about the same subject. We take this approach based on the belief that readers who come to DailyClimate.org want to see a wide range of how issues are being covered by the mainstream press.

I haven’t paid much attention to them up to now, perhaps I should. Then again, perhaps I’ll be disappointed.
Why, oh why are Trenberth, Abraham, and Gleick so excited about Wagner’s resignation, and why are they gloating over receiving an apology from Wagner? Wagner cited the public attention directed towards Spencer’s paper as one reason he resigned, but the people he apologized to have gone way overboard with their ad hominem attacks.
There’s been some good insight here about what may be going on behind the scenes, but none of it explains something like the Daily Climate tirade.
Twenty years from now when someone writes the definite book, “The Climate Wars”, I think these events will take up a long chapter.

Maybe everyone will now accept that the “science” has been taken out of “climate” and that the whole field is just a vicious political battle, with the bitter, angry, narcissistic control freaks of the AGW movement prepared to do whatever it takes to ram their worldview down everyone else’s throats.
They will fail — they always do — but the damage they can cause in the meantime is immeasurable.

This reminds me of the interaction between John Abraham and Lord Monckton about a year ago. Abraham fired-off an internet-based response to a presentation given by Lord Monckton. This response (http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/) was heavily laced with sneering adhominum attacks, poorly cited references and highly unprofessional from a scientific standpoint. Monckton’s 84 page rebuttal largely demolished Abraham’s diatribe.
As JoNova said (http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/abraham-surrenders-to-monckton-uni-of-st-thomas-endorses-untruths/:
“The only way to deal with bullies is to blitz them back with accuracy and logic, and if you are Christopher Monckton, load it with Latin barbs to make it so painful that they lift their game and are deterred from contributing to the wasteland of public disinformation.”
Perhaps a similar response is warrented

A perfect example of the state of climate science. It took three climate scientsits, Kevin Trenberth, John Abraham, and Peter Gleick, to write a 400+word opinion for an obscure Climate Change alarmist website.
And that generates a couple of questions: Why did it take the three of them? Do they lack opinions individually, but have them collectively?. And what happened, did RealClimate with its much greater reach pass on posting their opinion?

Perhaps it is now time to take the final step and elect scientists. After all, isn’t this whole brouhaha about politics? Professor Pielke makes that argument most convincingly.
Of course, my comment is in jest. But I get the distinct feeling these climate-scientologists believe it is their duty to engage in politics. That is how far they have strayed.

Frank K. says:
September 4, 2011 at 6:50 pm
“Is this how papers are announced in climate science?! I feel like I reading the promo for some TV wrestling cage match pay-per-view. Not only is this tacky, unseemly, and unprofessional, but it prejudges the conclusions of a paper that isn’t even published yet!”
sharp point.
and that letter of resignation was no an explanation. it was more like a plea of impotence to the team… trenbreth announces he received an apology? is he the queen?
there sure is something wolly going on. the null hypothesis of ‘stupid’ doesn’t seem enough to answer for this.
bravo to all who stand up and clearly say NO to the bs.
nasty won’t go away if it’s ignored or tolerated. instead it grows until it drives out the good.
i hate to admit it, but whenever i read ‘scientists say’, i now have a cringe response.
that’s just how badly they’ve done a hatchet job on my reverence for the sapiens part of our identity.

Paul says:
September 4, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Political tools the warmists use to scuttle scientific process are more consistent with a religious cult dealing with dissenters questioning the dogma.
They are not climate scientists, more like climate scientologists.
Trenberths behaviour is a travesty, and I would like him to publically explain it.

Trenberth, Gliek, ABRAHAM, Karl, Santer.
With names like this, would anybody expect any better from The Machine??
Truly a sad, sad day in science. What is this, North Korea?
Let the science work itself out and Spencer and Christy will fare just fine.
The rest, bearing their fangs and leaving their frontal lobes at the front door, well…time will tell.
We’ll see if the mass cognitive dissonance and groupthink disorder, deceiving even the elect, will continue to infect the church of the CAGW.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Perhaps this is the Climate Response Team in action (or what ever that PR group of scientists call them selves). How do they know what next weeks Dressler paper says? A week is too little time to prepare a response to S&B. Perhaps one of them was a reviewer of Dressler’s paper? Or Dressler offered up his not published paper to the response team as a PR spin deflector just to calm the waters.
Too many strong words and phrases by scientists, offered up on the blogoshpere – who listens to bloggers, anyway? There is a lot more to this story than we know tonight.
Scientists with knives are roaming the streets of PR ville looking for a fight.

Here you go Bob.http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/about
Their mission statement:“Mission: The Daily Climate works to increase public understanding of climate disruption, including its scope and scale, potential solutions and the political processes that impede or advance them. The Daily Climate does not espouse a political point of view on the news but instead reports the truth to the best of our ability. Editorial integrity is the foundation of our mission. Establishing the trust of our readers is a fundamental editorial objective; all of our reporting, editing and publishing adheres to the highest standards of journalism, including honesty, accuracy, balance and objectivity.”
EDITORIAL INTEGRITY?? YOU LIBELOUSLY INSULT TWO LEADING WORLD SCIENTISTS… REALLY??? ARE YOU ******KIDDING ME?
Here is their funding:“Funding for the Daily Climate comes from the Sea Change Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Oak Foundation, the West Wind Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation. The Kendeda Fund provides core support to EHS. Software was developed in a collaboration with the Edgerton Foundation. EHS is a project of the Virginia Organizing Project (Charlottesville, Va). Gifts to VOP for EHS qualify as charitable contributions. If you are interested in helping EHS expand its coverage of climate news, please let us know.”
UHHH no thanks. I’ll pass on helping. Wouldn’t give you a dime or a minute of time.
Daily Climate dot org for all I care you take that ‘daily’ proverbial commuter trip to hell!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

I hadn’t heard of The Daily Climate either. the following is from their “mission statement”:
Mission
The Daily Climate works to increase public understanding of climate disruption, including its scope and scale, potential solutions and the political processes that impede or advance them.
The Daily Climate does not espouse a political point of view on the news but instead reports the truth to the best of our ability. Editorial integrity is the foundation of our mission.
Establishing the trust of our readers is a fundamental editorial objective; all of our reporting, editing and publishing adheres to the highest standards of journalism, including honesty, accuracy, balance and objectivity.

I was once on a squadron with a USAF Major who used to describe one of the silly things people do as ‘stomping on the p*ss ants while the elephants are running amok’. You can see what he meant — you have enormous problems, you’re up to your knees in alligators and you can do nothing, but you can decide that no one entering the swamp is allowed to wear budgie smugglers. Stomp, stomp…. It doesn’t solve the problem, which is alligators, but it makes you feel better.
Dr Trenberth seems to have reached the ant-stomping stage in his career. Where is the missing heat? Why the blip? If the heat has been radiated away into space, can we still call it ‘global warming’? Why has the Secretary of State for Climate Change stopped answering his calls.? So he searches around for an ant. Stomp stomp…
Except this time he’s chosen a bloody big ant.
JF
PS. If you don’t know what budgie smugglers are, be thankful and don’t ask.

So Spencer and Christy made minor errors and corrected them as soon as they were found. Contrast this with the whopper of an errror in the latest IPCC report on the melting of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 and Pachauri’s “voodoo science” comment.
Matthew 7: 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

This is temporary respite only for CAGW, the form of the ‘fightback’ is familiar and eerily echoes some of the Climategate emails. If Spencer and Christy are onto the cause of the “missing heat,” ad hominem attacks and leaning on journal editors by Big Green will hold out the truth only for so long (and not long at that). The desperate tone I seem to detect in their written response will in fact be a major nail in the CAGW coffin as Spencer’s and Christy’s analysis of the “missing heat” (and the implications for CAGW assumptions about climate sensitivity to CO2 increases) is replicated, explored further and refined by others. Maybe the “Team” will fly in heavyweights such as Gore and Bongo Big Footprint from U2.

Bob Tisdale says:
September 4, 2011 at 7:30 pm
A perfect example of the state of climate science. It took three climate scientsits, Kevin Trenberth, John Abraham, and Peter Gleick, to write a 400+word opinion for an obscure Climate Change alarmist website. And that generates a couple of questions: Why did it take the three of them? Do they lack opinions individually, but have them collectively?
====================================
You know Trenberth has his good moments as a scientist.
But it is almost like he has a split personality and when he gets drawn into The Matrix…he quickly becomes one of the carbon copies, the clones, the automatons, that the rest of them are.
He doesn’t have the consistent scientific staying power and courage as does someone, like, for example Judith Curry, who is not afraid to break away from the pack and stand for the scientific method…as opposed to some of the emotion-laced dogma of her “peers.”
Groupthink Disorder has redoubled its attacks. Galileo and Copernicus are turning in their graves.
How our species can build rockets to the moon and build skyscrapers that defy gravity and write musical masterpieces which are all sheer genius…yet still participate in Neanderthal grunts of Official Groupthink bullsh**speak without a remote apology with the words “I was wrong”…is beyond me.
Some behavioral scientist will figure out this sad chapter in science history down the road…that is IF our species is still around.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Here is one explanation why Wagner resigned but the S&B paper was not retracted.
As a piece of science considered out of any context the paper is simplistic and its conclusions mundane, but not wrong. I posted when it first appeared and after a quick skim –
“izen says: July 29, 2011 at 3:52 am Shorter Spencer and Braswell.
We could not match ten years of real world data with significant ENSO events with model data that makes the assumption that over longer timescales the ENSO effect is neutral.
Over a ten year period ENSO variations were larger than AGW forcings so it was impossible to measure the positive feedback effects that might amplify the radiative forcing from higher CO2.”
Undoubtedly it is a summary that could be improved, but I still think it stands as a defensible version of the extent of the claims made in the published PAPER.
The problem for Wagner as editor of Remote Sensing was that while the paper was relatively innocuous, subsequent publicity made it looked like Wagner and RS were credulous fools who had been scammed.
They had accepted a paper somewhat off-topic for their journal which did not appear to make any dramatic claims, but then found that publicity, the unkind might call it hype, and commentary about the paper went FAR further in its claims than is justified by the contents or conclusions of the paper. –
Wagner-“With this step I would also like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate sceptics have much exaggerated the paper’s conclusions in public statements, e.g., in a press release of The University of Alabama in Huntsville from 27 July 2011 [2], the main author’s personal homepage …”
It is this massive discrepancy between the content of the published paper and the claims made for it that resulted in Wagner concluding that the RS journal had damaged its reputation because of his decision to publish a paper that was then exploited to make claims beyond its range or remit. Either the journal and editor are complicit in this campaign of misrepresentation, or by resigning and directly referring to this campaign the editor can make clear his and the journals uninvolvement in this episode. Although fingering the MANAGING editor….?!
The fault he identifies that caused this error is that when ‘peer reviewing’ this paper that attacked the accuracy of models, little effort was made to see what the modelers might respond to the comparisons made between some satellite data and some models.
And whether the subject ALREADY had a literature – a scientific context – in which the S&B paper could be judged.
In a way this matches Dr Roy Spencer’s speculations about the IPCC/Team pressure, how many phone calls and emails would it take from the leading names in the field telling Wagner he had been made to look like an idiot by accepting a superficially mundane paper from known skeptics that was then used to make outlandish claims for the overthrow of a century of science on the climate ?
A ‘big name’ in climate science was publishing in his new and obscure (for climate science) journal, but like the Trojans he had accepted a horse from the Greeks which was not all it seemed….

Some clarifications are needed. The orbital decay effect was discovered by Wentz around 1997 which induced a spurious cooling effect on one of our microwave satellite products (lower troposphere) but not the others. However, most people forget that at the same time Roy and I discovered an “instrument body effect” in which the observed Earth-view temperature is affected by the temperature of the instrument itself, leading to spurious warming (Christy et al. 1998, 2000). This effect counteracted about 75 percent of the orbital decay cooling effect – so the net effect of the two together was almost a wash (a point rarely acknowledged.)
In 2005, Wentz and Mears discovered an error in the equation we used for the diurnal correction in one of our products (again, lower troposphere) which we quickly corrected and then published a “thank you” to Wentz and Mears in Science for their cleverness in spotting the error with an update on what the magnitude of the error was. Again, the magnitude of this error was small, being well within our previously published error estimates for the global trend. (Note that we were first to discover the diurnal drift problem back in the 1990s and initiated various corrections for it through the years.)
Roy and I were the first to build climate-type global temperature datasets from satellite microwave sensors, so we learned as we went – and were aided by others who read our papers and checked our methods. My latest papers continue to investigate error issues of our products and of the products of others.
The review of my one publication in Remote Sensing last year was done quite professionally and it was clear to me and my co-authors that the referees chosen to review the paper were specifically knowledgeable of the various satellite, radiosonde and statistical issues, leading to some substantial and useful revisions.
Kevin Trenberth was my MS and PhD graduate adviser at Univ. of Illinois.

Radiative forcing is a purely fictional concept that was introduced in its current form by Manabe and Wetherald in 1967.
Manabe, S. & R. T. Wetherald, J. Atmos. Sci. 24 241-249 (1967), ‘Thermal equilibrium of the atmosphere with a given distribution of relative humidity’
The paper is available at:http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/sm6701.pdf
Here are the modeling assumptions taken directly from the second page of that paper. They are still used explicitly in the large scale climate models. [This is the input garbage before the gospel gets created.]
The radiative convective equilibrium of the atmosphere with a given distribution
of relative humidity should satisfy the following requirements:
1) At the top of the atmosphere, the net incoming solar radiation should be equal to the net outgoing long wave radiation.
2) No temperature discontinuity should exist.
3) Free and forced convection, and mixing by the large scale eddies, prevent the lapse rate from exceeding a critical lapse rate equal to 6.5 C.km-1.
4) Whenever the lapse rate is subcritical, the condition of local radiative equilibrium is satisfied.
5) The heat capacity of the Earth’s surface is zero.
6) The atmosphere maintains the given vertical distribution of relative humidity (new requirements).
There is no such thing as climate equilibrium.
The short term net flux is never in balance.
There is no ‘local radiative equilibrium’ anywhere in the troposphere.
The heat capacity of a real surface is never zero.
The ‘equilibrium surface temperature’ calculated by the climate models is not a measurable climate variable.
Also, the empirical ‘radiative forcing constants’ are ‘calibrated’ using the meteorological surface air temperature (MSAT) not the real surface temperature.
Every single result derived from the use of radiative forcing since 1967 is nothing more than climate astrology.

Excellent intro, Anthony. And I agree with savethesharks most recent comment.
.
Dr Christy says:
“Kevin Trenberth was my MS and PhD graduate adviser at Univ. of Illinois.”
Dr Christy, that pain in your back is from Trenberth’s knife…

Trenberth is the only one of the three authors that can claim to be a climate scientist.
Abraham has an engineering degree and Gleick has a degree in energy and resources.
Evidently the rest of Trenberth’s buddies refused to sign on to the article or maybe they don’t take his calls anymore.

Things are NOT going well for the Team, and this unprofessional character assault lends credence to that.
Public opinion worldwide is turning against carbon schemes, green economies and other machinations….political will to take on AGW is disappearing faster than the Arctic Sea Ice….and their funding streams are under serious attack. They are losing this fight and know it.
Prof. Christy, I am a PhD graduate advisor at University of Illinois in Urbana, and I am appalled at this treatment of you and Prof. Spencer.

“This my friends, is breathtaking for its sheer arrogance, agenda, and the scuttling of the scientific process in one sentence.”
LOL. Desperate people do and say really, really stupid things. The skeptics have clearly won the narrative, no matter what happens now. But it will be fun to watch the snakes slither….

“Any scientist who believes he/she hasn’t made mistakes, has never made a correction, or hasn’t built upon the mistakes of others to improve the science is deluding themselves.”
I seems to me that all “mainstream climate scientists” (MCS) believe that none of them has ever made a mistake. Apparently, all of them will argue that Mann has not made a mistake, that Briffa has not made a mistake,and the same for all the rest.
Excellent article. Thanks.

Political tools the warmists use to scuttle scientific process are more consistent with a religious cult dealing with dissenters questioning the dogma.
They are not climate scientists, more like climate scientologists.

That’s why I’ve been calling them “climsci” for the past several years. They don’t deserve to be called anything better.
This big brouhaha will simply strengthen that definition.

Bob Koss: i do not think it wise to disparage anybody’s training as a reason to doubt their expertise, particularly if it is at least based upon science and/or mathematics. Engineers in particular being heavily trained in data analysis techniques. Sadly, the latter is a skill sorely lacking in the hoi palloi, elevating those in the know to positions of abuse.
Mark

izen says:
September 4, 2011 at 8:38 pm
“They had accepted a paper somewhat off-topic for their journal which did not appear to make any dramatic claims, but then found that publicity, the unkind might call it hype, and commentary about the paper went FAR further in its claims than is justified by the contents or conclusions of the paper.”
These considerations are irrelevant to the duties of a journal editor. These duties extend to his employees, the authors of the paper in question, the journal, and the scientific community. To take seriously these considerations is simply to make an excuse for an editor who violated his genuine duties to his staff, the authors, the journal, and the scientific community. As Pielke, Sr., has pointed out so very eloquently, Wagner’s duties as editor were clear. He could have initiated a formal process of retraction or, preferably, he could have encouraged critics to submit criticisms to peer review. To do anything else is both immoral and unprofessional, not to mention immature at the level of a panicked undergraduate.
“The fault he identifies that caused this error is that when ‘peer reviewing’ this paper that attacked the accuracy of models, little effort was made to see what the modelers might respond to the comparisons made between some satellite data and some models.”
This simply states that the modelers must pre-approve presentations of data that conflict with the models. This is a policy of suppressing criticism of the modelers and is the most blatantly immoral and destructive proposal that I have seen in modern science. All criticism is to be encouraged and the tears of those criticized are never to be wiped. Or in the words of a famous scientist from Missouri, “If you can’t stand the heat then get out of the kitchen.” That is the way science must be practiced.

What about all those social scientists and communication experts who were advising climate scientists about how to comunicate with a sceptical public? Was nobody listening? This kind of witch-hunting will do nothing to convert sceptics, but it will add fuel to the fire of those who believe there is some sort of conspiracy to suppress dissenting views.

The article of Trenberth!
Its a proof of that he has no scientific argument left. Personal attacks and he is shows to be just a simple sore looser who doesnt know what to sahy anymore. Im proud to have chosen the right guys to trust and from behavior it was very easy from the beginning who to trust or not.
They are hiding behind thier censur RC afraid of getting in to any debate. Spencer takes them on openly and from the debate on his blogg its obvciuos that he really knows what he is doing and doesnt loose a single arumentation. The team hiding behind “Obscurity” trying to shot Roy down with false accusations and a behavior that doesnt even fit in a sandbox. The team is a pathetic excuse of what a scientist should be. Roy Spencer doesnt allow him self to degrade himself down to their level and thats how a winner acts.
Spencers observations against the teams models on steroids is no match. The outcome is given!
Why shold anyone have repect or trust in the “team” ? They havent earned it and already spent the trust that were never there.

Can anyone explain why Wolfgang would apologize to Trenberth? Apologize for what?
Does Wolfgang or Trenberth imagine that Spencer had a duty to quote Trenberth and state that he, Spencer, is specifically criticizing this postion? Why would anyone think that? (One might think that the position needs criticism but that Trenberth’s presentation of that position is idiotic and choose not to quote Trenberth.)
Does anyone think that Spencer had a duty to state that Trenberth has a different approach that is…is what? Is equally valid? That would be stupid. Is worthy of respect? That would be stupid? Spencer is criticizing Trenberth, after all.
Does anyone think that Spencer has a duty to bow to Trenberth? Clearly, Trenberth does.

Interesting paradigm difference in engineering reviews, Theo: those you invite are precisely those you may be criticizing. It is, at best, intentional hostility. However, it works because all parties have a career on the line (even if their jobs are immediately safe.) Brutal, but tends to work well in that context.
Mark

Ian H says:
September 4, 2011 at 9:25 pm
I Initially had the same reaction as you upon seeing savethesharks writing ABRAHAM in all caps, but I think this is a similar misunderstanding to the one by Dave Springer on the “Breaking” thread re Roy Spencer’s reference to engineers – you’ve missed the point of the emphasis. Abraham’s role as a member of the Team is not as a producer of the stuff they pass off as science; rather he is a propagandist for the Team. Since the best of them is simply developing computer models to ‘prove’ AGW, and as we see, Trenberth et al do not like having their models contradicted by empirical evidence, all savethesharks is saying is that the Team’s bar for science is very low, and Abraham pretty much scrapes the bottom in his Powerpoint and other ‘refutations’ of sceptical science.

I propose that Anthony create the “Wolfgang Wagner Award” to be bestowed annually on some person of importance in climate science, such as an editor of an academic journal, who has “done a Wolfgang” during the preceding year. The criteria are unsettled at this time. We can use Wolfgang as a template. The criteria would go something like this: “the editor of a journal reads some upsetting remarks on a blog, lambasts the authors and his staff in print, and blows himself up.”
At the beginning of each August, Anthony could post a “Request for Nominations for the Wolfgang Award.” Nominations would be open for comments. At some point, Anthony closes nominations and uses some method yet to be decided to choose the winner and a couple of others.
Everyone please feel free to take this suggestion and run with it.

izen;
Your “resignation” narrative is elaborate BS. Wagner resigned because RS wouldn’t cave to the pressure from the Team to retract the article, and he had to decide whose side he was on.
His bumbling and confused “apology” is nothing more than a declaration of allegiance and obeisance to the Consensus, AKA the Hokey Team.

Dr. Spencer, Dr. Christy, Dr. Braswell, Anthony,
What can I, as an individual, do to assist you and your determined stand on facts and integrity? You are not alone. Many like myself are more than willing to help. You have legions of willing ‘soldiers’ at your beck and call, eager to help you. Tell us how…. Where can we individually and collectively bring pressure to bear? Through the media? Through the financial backers of your opponents? We can frontal charge, flank and enfilade fire, defilade and snipe, or fifth column attack… but we need organization and we need guidance…..
You are facing a well financed, entrenched, determined, and organized opposition. Don’t try to fight them with small squad tactics alone! Facts and science are not the only tools in your tool box nor your small circle of trusted friends your only resources. You have an unguided legion of supporters, ready and eager to help. Show us how!
Third Spear Carrier On The Right.

Bob Tisdale says:
September 4, 2011 at 7:30 pmAnd what happened, did RealClimate with its much greater reach pass on posting their opinion?
In their attempts to reduce Spencer and Christy to the intellectual level of the Grocery Checkout Gossip Rag, they appear to have beat themselves to it.

Attention Tom Karl, Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth.
Read this article and weep. You can only wish for such a knowledgeable group that have the facts and skill of the WUWT readers, commentator’s and contributor’s You are a sad bunch who can’t accept or explain the truth, you are scraping the bottom of the barrel over and over again by publishing inferior rebuttals and scum pond science that even die hard warmists can see through. You and your [snip] are in full retreat, your running out of financing and time. You are masters of the foot in mouth, shoot yourself in the foot syndrome. Your deceitful world and shrinking pool of believers are dying on the vine.
Good riddance!

mark t,
September 4, 2011 at 9:32 pm
I don’t see where I disparaged anyone’s training. I simply pointed out that Trenberth couldn’t get another climate scientist to add any heft to the article. What I saw was a puerile attack on the competency of Spencer and his colleagues.
I absolutely believe other fields of science are perfectly capable of legitimate climate data analysis. It is after all the legitimacy of the argument and not the person that is important. I saw no legitimate arguments presented in the Trenberth screed. He didn’t want to take sole responsibility for it, so he went outside the field to get a couple supporting authors.

What an amazing piece of anti scientific propaganda. Trenberth should appologize and shut up at least until he can learn a little something about how scientific method works.
Finding and fixing errors is the whole point of the process. Trenberth’s ongoing refusal to look at observarions or consider explanations that on the basis of the data are unquestionably better than his own; means he is not a scientist regardless of some title bestowed on him by a university.

vigilantfish says:
September 4, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Ian H says:
September 4, 2011 at 9:25 pm
I Initially had the same reaction as you upon seeing savethesharks writing ABRAHAM in all caps, but I think this is a similar misunderstanding to the one by Dave Springer on the “Breaking” thread re Roy Spencer’s reference to engineers – you’ve missed the point of the emphasis. Abraham’s role as a member of the Team is not as a producer of the stuff they pass off as science; rather he is a propagandist for the Team. Since the best of them is simply developing computer models to ‘prove’ AGW, and as we see, Trenberth et al do not like having their models contradicted by empirical evidence, all savethesharks is saying is that the Team’s bar for science is very low, and Abraham pretty much scrapes the bottom in his Powerpoint and other ‘refutations’ of sceptical science.
===============================
Exactly.
Thanks for the clarification, vigilantfish.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

I guess the problem is with these people’s way of predicting future. They think that what was happening in the past will continue to happening in the future. Temperature has raised in the past so it must always raise in the future. Spencer did mistakes in the past so he must always make mistakes.

There is an opportunity to make lemonade here. (“When the going gets tough, make lemonade.”) S&B could call for a “jury” of a dozen distinguished retired scientists from various relevant fields outside climatology to hear & read the evidence, question the opponents, consult with experts (both sides could supply names), and issue opinions on this controversy.
Each side could name three members, and those members could chose the other members. (Alternatively, some members could be selected by any scientific society under whose auspices the Inquiry (as it should be called) is held.) Members should be warned that their names and votes will be etched in stone on a wall somewhere, to shame them in the future if they vote for what’s convenient or appealing now, rather than doing the right thing.
This Inquiry could serve as a template for dozens of similar additional Inquiries on other contested points of the GW controversy.

I always thought the “gang” worried about Mann not being able to control his emotions and likened him to a “Loose Cannon”. It would appear that Trenberth is out of the same mould and his signature is all over the opinion piece. Shameful actions from shameless people!

I was looking at Trenberth’s CV. Membership of countless committees and organisations. Also, ‘The total number of publications (April 2009) is 45 books or book chapters, 186 journal articles, 23 Tech. Notes, 104 proceedings or preprints, and 65 other articles, plus three videos, for a total of 423 publications plus 3 videos.’
This guy has spread himself so thin, it’s no wonder he doesn’t understand what Spencer and Braswell are saying.

With each episode of this dismal type, I wonder more about the motivation. Desperation shows in Trenberth’s writings past and present. What are the stakes?
No longer do I believe that personal reputation or scientific satisfaction drive the agenda.
Each outburst reinforces my hypothesis that there is a core of people who have a large financial investment in the success of CAGW and the carbon tax and relatives. I think of these as powerful people who are not above driving scientists to do unusual acts by threat or reward. From sniffs and hints here and there, I get the further impression that this core investment group includes people able to influence the daily news. (Others have commented on the future reliance of the BBC Pension Fund on the success of CAGW, but I have no independent knowledge of this).
As to the motivation of the Editor of ‘Remote Sensing’, the hypothesis extends to the core people assisting the placement of ‘stooges’ into positions of influence. If the stooge does not perform, he/she gets the chop.
It’s not conspiracy theory. It’s more the way that powerful people have enriched themselves in stock markets over the decades by manipulation of information. Money is to be made by advance knowledge of imminent change, so why not help create change? What else could generate cash in the amounts indicated by carbon credits/taxes etc?
If you seek to do something positive, dig into who’s likely to make heaps of $ if CAGW succeeds, then out them.

“It was precisely this kind of treatment of McIntyre in the early 2000′s that got me to start paying attention to the climate “debate”. ”
Me too. Not only do they protest too much, they do so in unsubstantive, logcially fallacious, anti-scientific ways. These are the enraged outbursts of a naked emperor.
Ironic that it is the likes of Trenberth that are demonstrating the anti-scientific gyrations of one desperately clinging to a faith commitment in the face of growing cognitive dissonance. It is the sort of thing that they imply about Spencer with their ad homs, while he is the one sticking to the methods of science.

I find it utterly inexplicable that Wagner should have thought it necessary to apologise to Trenberth, of all people! How did Trenberth come to be a party to these proceedings anyway, other than through the publication of some snide remarks on RealClimate? Is it because Wagner allowed a paper to be published which disputed the findings of Trenberth et al ? I can think of no other connection.
So I am wondering, just what is Trenberths status in the climate science community, that merely allowing a criticism of Trenberths work into the literature is considered sufficient reason to both resign AND apologise? Is there anyone else in the scientific world who’s reputation is so monumental that any taint of disagreement is considered grounds for banishment and contrition?
The question answers itself, of course. If there were such a person, they could not be part of the scientific community, because the scientific process does not allow for such immunity from scrutiny. Not for Newton, not for Einstein, not for Darwin, not for Hawking. And certainly not for Trenberth.
Just who does Wagner think Trenberth is?

its unfortunate that they’re bringing their defensive feelings into science, however i noticed this during climategate watching the performance of CRU spokesmen (aka cru scientists) when they were interviewed by the media. They do feelings to defend their position at realclimate also.

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this thought.
Clearly, S&B’s paper has struck a chord. It has been downloaded over 55,000 times. Surely that includes by people working in the field, who might even have been tempted to consider it’s implications, build on it, and cite it in future papers. The IPCC also would have been forced to address it in AR5.
Now what is it? From the Team’s perspective it is now the paper that was so bad the editors of the journal that published it resigned. Heck, one even wrote a letter of apology to Trenberth who said all along how awful it was. The coup de grace will be whatever Dessler publishes in GRL. It won’t even matter if it makes sense or is relevant or any of that. The messaging will be, over and over, horribly bad paper, editors resigned, apology, refuted by Dessler. You will see this whenever S&B’s work is raised.
Who will pay attention to it then? Who will build on it or cite it it in the future? No one. It would be career suicide. They can also safely stonewall any rebuttal S&B might make until after the AR5 comes out just to make sure it is good and dead.
I’m not qualified to judge the merit of the paper itself. Pielke Sr is and he says it was worth publishing, so I’ll assume it at least scores some good points. Doesn’t matter. Any non-skeptic who might have been inclined to at least look at it or consider it before will simply hear the messaging, close their minds, and move on now.
Those guys really do play hardball.

“What are the stakes?”
Complete control of the global economy?
I’m sure that many of the scientists involved really believe that their models are correct and they’re saving the world from a horrendous disaster, but ultimately ‘global warming’ has become a huge political power-grab worth trillions of dollars to the winners. That is what is at stake here.
Fortunately they’re too late; when ordinary people see the cost of power increasing during a recession while their income is static or decreasing so the government can give subsidy money to politicians’ relatives who build wind farms in order to save the world from global warming during a period where they see cooler weather than they have for years, they start to get a bit annoyed. ‘Global warming’ isn’t even on most people’s list of top ten threats any more except when politicians try to use it to scam more taxes from them. By the time the economy recovers it will be yesterday’s news.

savethesharks says: September 4, 2011 at 10:37 pm
vigilantfish says: September 4, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Ian H says: September 4, 2011 at 9:25 pm
Yes. For the uninitiated, Abraham has about as much credibility as a “Climate Psyentist” as Joe Romm or Bob Ward or The Great Moonbat (Monbiot).
Trenberth is presumably just about bright enough to realise this.
Choosing Abraham as a “running mate” in this enterprise is confirmation that he is getting desperate.

As the warmist campaign crumbles, I see increasing desperation from its supporters.
Surely if their claims were unassailable they would be confident and calm. The Anger and ad hominen attacks give the game away.

Being an Old Construction Worker that has worked outside in this swamp cooler atmosphere for over 40 years, I ask. Who would I believe? Someone, who used observed data and program a computer or some who programed a computer with assumptions that produced outcomes that didn’t match observed data?
Henry Kissinger declared in the 1970’s, ‘If you control the oil (energy) you control the country; if you control food, you control the population. What better for a government way to achieve than a Co2 tax and regulations?

Geoff Sherrington says:
September 4, 2011 at 11:21 pm
Geoff I think you will find that some of the industry/union super funds here in Australia are also heavily overweight in renewables investments. Perhaps another reason why our socialist government is resorting to all manner of lies and deceit to prop up the CAGW orthodoxy underpinning their carbon dioxide tax.
Of Kevin Trenberth and company’s intemperate slimeing of John Christy and Roy Spencer – surely this is a gilt-edged acknowledgement that “the debate is over” and his team has lost?

Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth sound like they are in a hole. My advice is for them to keep digging. Or maybe they are undercover sceptics trying to damage the warmist pitch. Again keep digging,they are doing a grand job. My distrust of the Team grows and grows.

I am starting to realize (like others before me) that this will not go away until the Team (and their “generation) retire or pass away.
They have ALL their eggs in this basket and if they now admit they are wrong about CAGW, they will be burned at the stake, given that trillions are spent based on their CO2 delusion.
They have no choice but to fight to the death…

Similar accusations and insults occurred in the 1950’s when the theory of Plate Tectonics first raised its head. It was said to be impossible but observation won out and today it is fact with bits of refinement being added every so often to fit in with new observation.
Let’s hope that climate science follows down the same lines with observation driving theory not politics.

Friends:
Please remember this truism:
One is often forgiven for being wrong but rarely forgiven for being right.
The nature of Trenberth’s attack on Spencer is a clear indication that Trenberth knows – or , at vey least, Trenberth thinks – Spencer is right.
Richard

What a sorry state of affairs indeed. An emotionally lead attack on a what looks like quite a robust bit of science is just going to end up with a lot of hot air exhaled and no visible dent on the fundamental science.
This is another straw of evidence on the back of the AGW camel; not long now…

Wow, Trenberth has really jumped the shark on this one. The institutions that Wagner has worked in are a who’s who of establishments pushing the whole AGW meme. My guess (slightly tin foil) is that Wagner allowed the paper through in the full knowledge that he would then seek a retraction from the editorial board, in order to cause the maximum embarassment to Spencer and Braswell. However, when it came to delivering the retraction, he couldn’t bring the editorial committee on board, and then had to apologise to Trenberth for not doing so. They then formulated this other strategy where Wagner would resign, and Trenberth et al would coordinate attack pieces on the paper.
This paper has complied with all the requirements of getting into AR5. It is peer-reviewed and published within the time frame for submissions to AR5, and genuinely adds to the sum of our knowledge. Trenberth could not have that paper included in AR5, as it counters a lot of the bedwetting pronouncements made to date. It is a further indication that AR5 is likely to be the “scariest” of all the papers from IPCC.
Trenberth et al have drawn a line in the sand that existing climate scientists will have to decide which side of they are on. If the climate establishment do not come out with a clear indication that they find this behaviour unacceptable (and that includes Judith Curry), then they will have clearly indicated that they are not scientists at all.

The simple fact is that either the rest of the scientific community will side with Spencer … that research should be published and science will remain an open forum for discussion as the main way forward … or it will side with Trenberth and it will become like communism, inward looking, paranoiac, brooking no dissent and constantly harking back to the good old days as it goes into terminal decline.
In real life everyone makes mistakes. In science, that means that some papers will have mistakes. Real scientists are not so much tolerant as “measured” or dispassionate in their response … afterall IT IS JUST SCIENCE the truth will out in the end.
When people are getting so hyped up as Trenberth, it tells you that their involvement in the subject is NOT SCIENCE. Science is the dispassionate interpretation of the facts. It removes the observer bias: unlike religion, art, etc., every who applies the scientific method should look at the facts and come to the same conclusion.Trenberth by his outburst is showing that he cannot separate the passion from the science: he cannot observe the evidence neutrally i.e. he demonstrates HE IS NOT A SCIENTIST.

I think the AGW frauds are starting to realise that there is a genuine possibility that they will exposed, and will be brought to account through the courts for their use of tax payer funds.
They will now stoop lower and lower…. because they know that if they dont, there is a good chance they will one day see the inside of a jail cell for the massive missuse of public funds.

Perhaps Dr. Spencer and colleagues – after a quick consultation with a legal expert, of course, we don’t want to see real scientists descending to cheap ad homs – could simply release a public declaration that “on this occasion, we have chosen not to take action over this libel”. Other than that, ignore it, or we’re just encouraging them.

Whilst I shouldn’t feel sorry for Trenberth, given the brutality of attacks by his ilk on other scientists, I do. He had a career, he had a bright future. He used to be sought after for advice from the highest officials of many countries. They are now fighting a desperate rear guard action trying … rather like the Nazi’s desperately cobbled together units of boys and old men, and shot any that refused, so the climate “Reich” is desperate to stop their reputation haemorrhaging and is clearly bringing huge pressure on any and every editor to “tow the line of doomsday global warming”.
But just as the last actions of the Nazis – whilst entirely in character – were counter productive because it made ordinary Germans feel they really did not want this Nazi government, so I think the last days of the climate Reich, is more likely to make editors question their ethics than to enhance their reputation as scientists.
You only resort to these measures when you are really desperate. If they really believed the science backed what they were saying, then they’d push the science. The fact that they have to resort to such desperate anti-science tactics just shows how desperate they are.

Funny I remember Einstien but not the 100 scientists.
Although I think Kevin Trenberth, John Abraham and Peter Gleick could be going down in history on how not to do science, so at least they will be in all the science books in future on the corruption of the scientific method.

Folks, consider this…
Kevin Trenberth’s name showed up in the headers of a goodly number of
Climategate e-mails as a straight out recipient, recipient of a copy, or in a
few instances, the primary author. These e-mails were on a server at the
University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit deep in the bosom of
mother England.
Within the next few months the duplicative and in many cases confiming,
time stamped e-mails going to or coming from Mike Mann while at the
University of Virginia will be released after the judge decides which of
the disputed ones don’t qualify for an “exception”. These e-mails come
from a place that’s in the heart of the Commoweath of Virginia, a proud
member of the 1st thirteen American colonial states.
It’s possible the Wegman Report going into the “Team” interactions”
on the professional and personal levels missed a larger and stronger
nexus of climate science chums and supporters here in North America.
Kevin Trenberth’s name will once again be circulated publically along with
such impressions (and maybe more quotable comments) as the new batch
of Mike Mann e-mails might generate.
Kevins’ just doing pre-emptive strike publicitly here.
tucked away in a forgotten

Egotistical bullies are every where in trade unions and politics, they have now invaded science.
They are the bane of normal society and serve no useful purpose , they feed their egos with the acclaim of useful idiots and feed on the public purse.
This Trenberth and his mob may have once started out doing real science, but they have been sucked in to their own invincible conclusions.
The problem they face is that real science and not political science is rearing up to bite them on the bum. This is also a time that politicians have stopped listening to them.
They will from now on behave like cornered wild dogs, for they can not possibly retreat without looking like fools. I am not feeling pity.

Rick Bradford says:
September 4, 2011 at 7:08 pm
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
I have long held such view.
I have little doubt that withhin about 10 years as the divergence between measured temperatures and projected model temperatures grows, the ‘consensus’ (and how I dislike that) will shift and it will be ‘accepted’ that at the very least, there has been a gross over estimate of sensitivity to CO2 and that CO2 levels are not of so much concern.
The problem is that in these 10 years immeasurable damage will be inflicted on the European, and in particular upon the UK economy. The present energy policies of the UK and Germany are mad.
You could not believe that any sentinent being would propose such policy still less that there would be sufficient number of legislators that would go along with the madness. Perhaps the medical profession have made an error, perhaps madness is truly contagous! It certainly behaves like an infectious disease amongst our political leaders.
We are in the midst of an economic depression, the likes of which have not been seen since the 1930s. There is a desperate need to stimulate the economy, to reduce costs for business and to put more money in the pocket of consumers. The present energy policies are simply adding grossly to the costs of industry, indeed the running of any business small or large. The green taxes and subsidies are hitting ordinary people hard. If the government was to put on hold this green madness, it would save about £18billion per year which is more than the present austerity cuts. Further, consumers would save several hundred pounds a year in not seeing their energy bills rise, and perhaps more when one takes into account green taxes on petrol and air travel. This would be the equivalent of a 1 to 3% tax cut for the less well off, and would stimilute consumer spending. If only the government would put their green agenda on hold, this would greatly assist the economic recovery.. In fact, there could be some positive stimulus. The UK requires 17 or 18 new conventional power generating stations to act as back up for wind farms. There is no reason why building of those should not immediately go ahead. They will be needed whether or not we introduce wind farms at a later stage.
There is nothing to be lost by imposing a moritorium on this green madness until after the present economic recession has past, since for whatever reason, temperature increase has essentially stalled since 1998 and we therefore (for whatever reason) been given more time to deal with the threat (if any) posed by CO2.
Unfortunately, I suspect that many old people will have to die (largely due to unaffordable fuel prices) and a general loss of industry (what little still remains) to India and China (which loss will never be regained) before the politicians eyes are finally opened and they come to realise what a mistake their green policies have been this century.

The Tren Commandments
1. Thy shalt have no other climate God but me.
2. Do not worship observations, they are false idols.
3. Do not rebutt articles with my name on them.
4. Six months shall thou labour on thy paper, we do it in six days
5. Honor your betters. Thats me.
6. Thou shalt not kill the goose that layeth the Golden egg.
7. Do not commit adult. You are all children. I am the only adult
8. Do not steal my thunder.
9. Do not lie by telling the truth. For only my lies are the truth
10. Do not covet my models.
EO

Anthony a very good article and of course it would be ridiculous to think of the Hockey Team in the same scientific league as Einstein Planck and Bohr et al. Also it would appear that they capability to operate as professional scietists in the manner of their behaviour does not measure up to the boot laces of the great early 1900 physicists.
JJ Thomson propose an Atomic structure
Lord Rutherford shows it is incorrect and proposes his own.
Niels Bohr shows Rutherford’s structure cannot be and proposes his own. Which is still taught in schools today, it is wrong?
Bohr, Born, Einsteinn, Heisenberg and others debate and discuss and the structure of the atom and the understanding develops to show that Bohr’s structure is wrong. Quantum Mechanics now describes atomic structure that most of us find so difficult to understand.
In all of the above the disagreements resulted in agreement, if the Hockey Team had been in control then science would have not moved on one iota, A Because of their intellects and B because of their bad behaviour and acting in bad faith.

H/T Bullies for Science.
…-
“Barack Hussein Einstein at Harvard”
“By James Lewis
There’s a funny story about Barack Obama at Harvard Law, both funny-ha-ha and funny-peculiar. It involves one of those cloud-borne Himalayan intellects of liberalism, Professor Larry Tribe, the Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law at one of the most prestigious law schools in the United States. Tribe is the legal giant who is always a bridesmaid but never a bride for the Supremes.
And yea verily, the Professor met and held converse with The Blessed Lightworker Himself back in the nineties. The story doesn’t say if they were both stoned out of their minds when they got together, but it’s the only explanation I can think of. What happened is so weird and so discreditable to all concerned that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Still, nobody in the liberal media seems to get the joke…which tells you a lot.
Professor Tribe, it appears, made it really big in academic law by writing trendy postmodern articles like “Toward a Syntax of the Unsaid: Construing the Sounds of Congressional and Constitutional Silence,” “The Constitution in Cyberspace,” “Toward a Metatheory of Free Speech,” “Trial by Mathematics,” and even “Seven Deadly Sins of Straining the Constitution through a Pseudo-Scientific Sieve,” which turned it all into self-parody, because pseudo-science is exactly what made Larry Tribe’s big reputation. This academic disease is commonly described as “physics envy.” It arises out of academic inferiority complexes, with everybody wanting to do fake physics because that is real science.
If you remember those old po-mo days, that kind of stuff was standard pomotwaddle designed to impress innocent young students and the Board of Trustees. No sane person believed it. Alan Sokal famously hoaxed a po-mo journal into accepting a nonsense physics article, and then revealed their ignorance to the world. Postmodernism never recovered.
Professor Tribe comes right out of a great comedy tradition of long-winded professors spouting obvious claptrap to fool the suckers. Shakespeare used that gag with Polonius in Hamlet. Groucho Marx used it. Molière became famous for his “scholar” in the suckered Bourgeois Gentleman. Greek and Roman comedy writers used it. Every humorist in history has used that shtick, because it’s funny. But it takes a postmodern professor of law to make it real.
By the ’90s Larry Tribe had risen to become the Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law, based on the depth and profundity of his cockamamie legal scholarship. I guess. And then, a magical moment in history when great minds meet…it was Michelangelo and Leonardo, Plato and Socrates, Larry, Moe and Curly.
Barack Hussein Obama Barry Soetoro, Jr. walks into Larry Tribe’s office. ”http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/barack_hussein_einstein_at_har.html
…-
“On Being Governed By Scientific Frauds
By James Lewis
The news leaked out a while ago that Al Gore scored a D in natural science at Harvard. That would be the science introduction for Other Majors, not difficult chemistry or calculus. So Nobel Laureate Al Gore got a D in Science for Dummies.
But don’t worry. ”http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/on_being_governed_by_scientific_frauds.html

There lots of “adjustments” made to the satellite data by Specer and team. Most have not been explained.
Interestingly it seems that near surface measurements which showed massive increases were terminated (faulty satellite? but they were used for many years without question)
Some very minor changes less than 0,1K have not been explained. Then if satellites are so accurate why when changing from NOAA-15 to AQUA is there differences of 0.1K? seehttp://tinyurl.com/3w89h2c

There is an ancient and ongoing battle between individualists and collectivists. Collectivists look for reasons that everyone should be required to cooperate in whatever scheme is currently popular with collectivists. Communism was the popular scheme for decades. As that idea weakened collectivists jumped onto environmentalism and global warming to justify global adherence to their programs.
It is not surprising that collectivist leaders should scream in anger when their scheme is threatened. It is not science that they defend. It is their management of world affairs.
How exciting and satisfying it must be to lead the world in an effort to save humanity from itself. How horrifying it must be to see your leadership threatened.

Sent to TDC
“It is so ironic that discedited scientists such as Trenberth and his other fellow “scientists” from the Hockey Team should make personal attacks on two credible scientists such as Spenser and Christy.
I suppose that the Team are so remote from professional behaviour and scientific research that if the truth punched them on the nose they would not notice?”

Wagner is now out of a job, so he might be persuaded to let us know the real reasons behind is resignation. Was it his own and personal decision to resign over what, after all, is just one article that someone happens to disagree with. Or was he ‘persuaded’ to resign through the mysterious powers and financial influences that control the AGW cult at the present time? Surely he would want to give us a genuine reason for his resignation when the one he gave which was published in the pro. AGW media looked so very much contrived to suit someones agenda.

tallbloke says:
September 5, 2011 at 4:57 am
The comment you referenced has nothing to do with the changes shown in the link:
the AQUA 4.4km changes were made in 2010-07-03
the NOAA 4.4km data was terminated in 2010-05 when it showed a temp 0.1K above AQUA
The AQUA 7.5km is 0.45K warmer than the NOAA 7.5km data (now discontinued)
The AQUA 22km is 0.2K warmer than NOAA
The NOAA| 1km showing 1.1K warming since 1998 was terminated in 2009-09 with no AQUA replacement

Indeed all very bizarre behaviour ….
1) Why, if there are significant errors in the paper, do they just not submit a correction ?
2) Why, if the paper is significantly flawed, would it ever be necessary to personalise the rebuttals like this … and via blog sites ?
3) Why, if the paper is so flawed, has it not been retracted by the journal ?
The answers to these lie in the fact that the paper is not flawed, but the truth is huge threat to their life’s work.

richard verney says: September 5, 2011 at 3:11 am
quote
[]
The green taxes and subsidies are hitting ordinary people hard. If the government was to put on hold this green madness, it would save about £18billion per year which is more than the present austerity cuts. Further, consumers would save several hundred pounds a year in not seeing their energy bills rise, and perhaps more when one takes into account green taxes on petrol and air travel. This would be the equivalent of a 1 to 3% tax cut for the less well off, and would stimilute consumer spending. If only the government would put their green agenda on hold, this would greatly assist the economic recovery.
[]
unquote
Yes! With one bound the Boy was free….
HMG does not read Watts Up. However, I bet they’re watching the comments on the Telegraph today — a good article about the cost of green taxes to households. Householders have votes.
You’d do the country a favour by reposting your comments there.
JF

“JJ says:
September 4, 2011 at 11:22 pm
“It was precisely this kind of treatment of McIntyre in the early 2000′s that got me to start paying attention to the climate “debate”. ”
Me too. Not only do they protest too much, they do so in unsubstantive, logcially fallacious, anti-scientific ways. ”
Me too, when I read about the Team’s wish to remove 3 editors they disliked, I thought it was humans being human, and sounding off. When I found out that they did indeed, erm “resign”, “wish to spend more time with their family”, I realized there was something to it. This makes it the 4th. They seem to have a lot of clout.
Can someone tell me if I’ve got the science of this right? Christy and Spencer have posited that the missing heat is not missing, but was never there in the first place?
This finding seems to agree with Trenberth and co’s tropical paper?
Or according to Spencer, T’s paper is not relevant because it’s regional, theirs is global?
Or according to Trenberth (I don’t think he has said what he thinks, but we can infer what he thinks from his reaction), this opposes his findings?
Because of this Wagner has resigned and apologised to Trenberth! Eh? What’s it got to do with Trenberth? By their own admission he is not mentioned … and Spencer himself says that his paper is not relevant.
Anyway I hereby move that the 2nd Galileo Prize be awarded to Spencer and Christy! (Sounds like a 70s cop show 🙂 ).

Richard S Courtney says: September 5, 2011 at 1:29 am
I suggest the movie using VLC media player True GritThe wicked flee when none pursueth Proverbs 28:1
‘and robbed him of his life, and his horse and two Californian gold pieces that he carried in his pocket…… and Papa had taken him up to Fort Smith to lead back a string of mustang ponies he had bought, …..
he could have walked his horse, because not a soul in that city could be bothered to give chase……..
Later in the movie, even a 14 year old could distinguish the mores of our [true] science and the laws developed by humans which seek to explain the laws of nature – Malum in se

Re the ‘serial mistakes’ said to have been ‘uncovered’ by other scientists:
This remark is indeed not just indicative for the ‘serial’ arrogance displayed by Trenberth, Gleick and Abraham, but for their aim of doing a thorough hatchet job on Dr Spencer and all his co-authors.
They do not link to any papers ‘correcting’ those ‘serial mistakes’, because they feel they don’t need to: their acolytes will, they trust, spread this slur about in the usual manner.
If one were so foolish to ask them for evidence,all they’ll do will be providing a link to this hatchet job.
It is of a piece with the ‘settled’ science, and shows that Trenberth and the rest of them have stopped arguing from science but rely on authority – their own that is. They simply do not see, never mind acknowledge, that their own science has been shown again and again to rest on very small feet of clay.
Take it as another point of evidence that cAGW is about politics and power – not about science.

JJwright says:
September 5, 2011 at 5:13 am
…
JJ, I think you should describe what is going on in each graph on your post, and then send a polite email to Christy asking him to take a look and explain the differences. I know the old MSU was going wonky, and that’s why UAH switched to AQUA.

As a New Zealander, I am proud of countrymen and women such as Lord Rutherford, John Hamilton (inventor of the marine jet propulsion unit and many more, John Britten who developed a world-beating motorcycle, Pearse, the first man observed in powered flight and many more. Trenberth is an embarrassment.

Their errors date to the mid-1990s, when their satellite temperature record reportedly showed the lower atmosphere was cooling.
=========================================
Could this apply verbatim to IPCC Ars?

I felt that an editor resigning because a paper had been “savaged” on blogs and by “scientists on blogs”, was quite odd. But with the three sttoges opinion piece, it now becomes clear that he was just setting up the predicate.

Sad day for the scientific method,whats the saying about “desperate people requiring desperate measures.lets hope Dr Christy and Dr Spencer take action and point out a few more problems with the models and theory.

“Over the years, Spencer and Christy developed a reputation for making serial mistakes that other scientists have been forced to uncover.”
As per past practices (ref. Catholic Church), Spencer and Christy (and the other Deniers) should first be tried under “Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition”. Excommunication has already occurred, so the likely result would be HOUSE ARREST.
Will the CLIMATE JUDGES be held responsible when the Earth turns cold??? Can the TRUTH claw back their bonuses and gifts, or will the standard practice of reward and promotion for following the “Politically Correct View (money)” prevail??
What is at the heart of this issue is “World Control”!!

>>>Wijnad
>>>They have ALL their eggs in this basket and if they now admit they
>>>are wrong about CAGW, they will be burned at the stake
>>>They have no choice but to fight to the death…
Absolutely. If you want to know what AGW ‘scientists’ will do, just watch President Assad in Syria, for he is in the same position.
Assad is a part of a persecuted minority sect (that is not entirely Muslim), that was placed in positions of power by the French at the turn of the last century. If he ever gives up power, he and his clan will be slaughtered/exiled, and so he has no choice but to hang on to power at all costs. The AGW ‘Team’ are in the same position – admit any fundamental errors, and they will become ridiculed, powerless, despised and exiled from the scientific community.
My prediction, back in April, was that Assad will commit another Hamma massacre (some 40,000 died back in the ’70s) to retain power. My prediction for the AGW crowd is that they will destroy as many skeptic politicians and scientists as they can, to hold on to power. However, the skeptics have one wild-card that the AGWs cannot control – the weather. One bone-chilling great freeze of a winter in the USA will topple their corrupt and totalitarian regime.
.

The hatchet job done on Christy and Spencer is typical of liberals who only want their own voices to be heard and writings to be seen. Organized silencing of the opposition seems to be their way.
As for mistakes in work there is a big difference in evaluation between honest mistakes due to the pressure of time or the complexity of the job and intentional mistakes, omissions, incompetence or the need to deceive. After all audits, reviews and inspections are to get at the truth of what is working right and not.

The day Abraham, Gleick and Trenberth admit that there silly AGW models cannot predict a week out – which would match the current state of the art in orbit predictions given LEO and GEO orbit decay – is the day they can claim someone else has ‘serious errors’ in their science.
Their glass house is in shatters all around them as AGW theory has failed over and over and over again, all the while they have replaced science with fictional hype to try and salvage AGW from the dustbin of foolish history.
While this is a professional insult, look at who is throwing the insults as ask – do you care? Fools lashing out, nothing more.
Pathetic really.

By the way, this is a GOOD DAY for science. When peons come out and make wild and baseless accusations to divert from their own mountain of failed science, you know the debate is reaching its pinnacle – and end.
Science has always evolved through tumultuous debate. The history of science is replete with heated argument just as the old paradigm is thrown out with the coming of a new one. This is no different. All that is happening is the internet has allowed this evolutionary cycle to work much quicker – but it will never work with less heat. This stuck in the past are most fervent their world views don’t come crashing down.

This angry and vile reaction fits very well with the idea that “climate science” as practiced by “the team” is really a religion of sorts. The way these poor souls from “the team” conduct themselves has no connection with honest science and the absolute human joy of discovery. Science is the pinnacle of mans achievement on earth and should be an open, refreshing and lively discussion among the best and brightest of our people. Point, counter point, proof, hypothesis, theory, practical application and improved living conditions are the goal. What the team is attempting to do is create a wall around their little fiefdom and anoint themselves high priests. It will not work.
Great work on the subject Anthony. Without dedicated people like you it would have take many more lives and much more treasure before the false religion of climate science was exposed as a fraud.

Trenberth means “bee” in Hebrew. Bees can sting, but when they sting too hard they leave their stinger in the mammal/person attacked and soon die, thus losing the ability to sting again. My prediction is that Trenberth will find himself left out of the mainstream climate discussion in the future. With his deplorable actions he is now a stinger-less drone and his professional career is finished.
From my experience scientists do make mistakes and it is rather difficult to get them to acknowledge the mistakes when the mistake involves actual measured findings. It takes a broad perspective to examine conclusions that are based on measured or experimental data. I have read many of Roy Spencer’s works. In all fairness, he does miss a few points now and then. He accepts his mistakes like a true gentleman and distinguished scientist; however, he would be well advised to let a broad based engineering supervisor review his work before submitting it to the whole wide world.
JFD

This episode merely confirms the “cargo cult” nature of much if not most of climate science today. Little intellectual honesty, practically no self-doubt or self-discipline in the pursuit of scientific truth. Someone casts doubt and, instead of an open-minded investigation into this new idea, the natives get restless and start chucking spears. I wish Feynman was still alive.

This whole climate controversy is the same as the two fleas arguing over who owns the dog. In the entire WRITTEN history of mankind, some say 7000 years, others 3,500 years, there has not been one single day, hour, or minute when the entire, or even close to the entire, population of the Earth has agreed with each other let alone acted in concert. As history teaches us…if it has not happened yet with a population as low as 2000 years ago, then the increase in the population increases the input of chaos in the system and it will never happen in spite of modern communications.
Premise 1 of the AlGorian dogma is that all nations MUST act together to save the planet. China has never agreed with the USA. Russia has never agreed with China. India despises Pakistan. Japan and China are in dispute. Almost no African nation other than South Africa has a stable government. Indonesia distrusts Malaysia. No one except Japan likes the USA. Europe cannot even agree on an interest rate. The UK, NZ, Australia etc are little offshore Islands and completely irrelevant.
If a Country leads by example, no one will follow, they will simply mop up the opportunities your example gives them. Just as with the bully in the playground…If you turn the other cheek he will hit you on it.
So there is not one single chance in hell that even if Trenberth et al were right that anything could be done to prevent the CO2 monster from destroying the world, equally if his team are wrong there is no chance in hell of the other side being able to prevent the Natural variability in Climate from freezing our gonads off in the next million years even if they wanted to.
So what is the point in all this? Why does Trenberth behave like a four year old ? He is not the only one either. This whole ridiculous scenario boils down to pride. I am right and you are wrong so Nyah!. Back in the Playground.
Now what we have are a bunch of scientists arguing about who is right for no other reason than personal pride. Circling them like the Hyena around the lions kill are the Politicians, each after his own statue in a square somewhere, a piece of purple cloth with a badge on it, or a title and some nice lucrative speaking engagements. Then surrounding them are the prairy dogs, the journalists, trying to grab a few scraps to feed their cubs, the vast majority of the almost totally disinterested population of the world.
I wish the climate Scientists were the Lions, but they are not,. They are the Lions kill. The Lions are the big business men, the big land owners, the controllers of inherited wealth, the corrupt National leaders, The faceless ones behind Lloyds, behind the banks, behind the governments, behind the super-corporations. What do they think of all this argument? Go look at the superyachts, the stately homes and the private jets and work it out for yourself.
Me? I think the climate argument is fun. It cannot possibly influence the state of this Earth in 50 years or in 50,000 years.The Earth will treat us with the contempt we so richly deserve and chuck us off into space whenever it feels like it and nothing will change that. I will continue to eat and drink, stay warm in winter, drive a small car, compost old food, burn wood that I grow and put my junk in the recycling. Only if the other 4 billion people do that or better will anything change. Al Gore won’t even give up the Jet, the multiple homes etc. etc. so that leaves………You’ve guessed it.. Adapt to survive just like every living species has done for millenia.

Unfortunately this is not the first time the science conducted by Roy Spencer and colleagues has been found lacking. The latest came Friday in a remarkable development, when the journal’s editor-in-chief, Wolfgang Wagner, submitted his resignation and apologized for the paper.
S&B11 was “found lacking” because Wagner resigned and apologized? Yup, sports fans, that’s what ipcc Climate “Scientists” call a “method of proof”. They aren’t even in the freaking Stadium.

The Climate Liars (global warmers) are an ideological movement that is pretending to do science. It’s about time the Climate realists (global warming sceptics) realize their opponents are people that will do anything to impose their twisted incoherent ideology upon the world. Truth doesn’t matter to the Climate Liars. They aren’t even real scientists. They are propagandists and manipulators. Nothing matters to them except winning.They have destroyed climate science to implement their goals and they will destroy peoples’ reputations and careers if need be. Nothing these people do surprises me any longer. They are engaged in a war against truth and science.

… The messaging will be, over and over, horribly bad paper, editors resigned, apology, refuted by Dessler. You will see this whenever S&B’s work is raised.
Who will pay attention to it then? Who will build on it or cite it it in the future? No one. It would be career suicide. They can also safely stonewall any rebuttal S&B might make until after the AR5 comes out just to make sure it is good and dead.

This whole resignation-apology maneuver is a Team-coordinated move with the singular purpose of dismissing the contributions of Spencer and Braswell from consideration by the IPCC in AR5. They are making good on Phil Jones’s declared program of IPCC literature “sanitization”:

“… Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” – Phil Jones 8/7/2004

Trenberth’s job description could not be more clear. He has not been a scientist since at least 2004. He is a Commissar, charged with detecting political deviation and enforcing indoctrination.

Responses to The science is scuttled: Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth resort to libeling Spencer and Christy
The three scientists who wrote the ad hominem attack might as well have started wearing a sign around their necks with “We lack scientific objectivity and are no longer interested in the truth.”
Meanwhile the back in the real world, the data indicates the planet is no longer warming
.http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/KD_InPress_final.pdf
“Recent energy balance of Earth”
“A recently published estimate of Earth’s global warming trend is 0.63 ± 0.28 W/m2, as calculated from ocean heat content anomaly data spanning 1993–2008. This value is not representative of the recent (2003–2008) warming/cooling rate because of a “flattening” that occurred around 2001–2002. Using only 2003–2008 data from Argo floats, we find by four different algorithms that the recent trend ranges from –0.010 to –0.160 W/m2 with a typical error bar of ±0.2 W/m2. These results fail to support the existence of a frequently-cited large positive computed radiative imbalance.”

This is no longer science, this is Politics, plain and simple. This means there is only one way to truly end all of this.
Defund the entire Climate Change Machine. Abolish all the funding. Announce that the US will *encourage* “greenhouse gas” production from now on, guaranteeing that no matter what the Euro’s decide to do, they will be incapable of changing anything worldwide and thus their actionss/sacrifice will be meaningless. Tell the Euro’s that we’re laughing at them while we’re taking their jobs because their energy is now too expensive to compete. The Game only works if eveyone is in on it. Kill the whole shooting match by publicly denouncing the Game and openly ridiculing any country that still tries to play it.
Perry for President!

TomRude starts the thread off with: “These people do protest too much…”
That was always my thought on the response to McLean et al (2009).http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011637.shtml
Though there were problems with that paper, it took the who’s who of climate science to reply to it. Foster et al (2009)…http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009JD012960.shtml
…included Foster (Tamino), Annan, Jones, Mann, Mullan, Renwick, Salinger, Schmidt, and Trenberth.
And what’s the common denominator for Spencer and Braswell (2011) and McLean et al (2009)? ENSO.

It may well be the case that the S&B paper contains a too simplified model. It may be that comparisons with other data sets were not fully explored, but there can be little argument with the nub of the paper namely that empirical observations of temperature are at odds with model projections.
Not one of the 20 or so models used by the IPCC have predicted/projected the relatively static temperature trend post 1998. Of course, one explanation put forward by the warmists is that the model predictions/projections were correct but for the unforeseen aerosol cooling caused by the Chinese burning of dirty coal. That may, of course, be an explanation (although I doubt that it is), but if it is not then some other explanation is required. The prime candidate for which is that the climate sensitivity to CO2 is less than assumed by the various models. This in turn supports generally, the conclusion that the (excess) heat never existed (was not generated because of the lower sensitivity), or was lost to space such that it never built up in the atmosphere.
The problem for Trenbeth is his missing heat, the fact that he is on paper as noting that the heat is missing, and that he is on paper as recognising the importance/significance of the heat being missing. This severely restricts his position.
The problem for any rebuttal paper is that empirical observation is at the very least consistent with the proposition that the atmosphere is less sensitive to CO2 than presently assumed to be the case by each of the 20 or so models used by the IPCC, and the longer that almost static temperature levels persist, the more it becomes apparent that the models are diverging from reality such that there is something seriously deficient in the assumptions underlying their modelling. Lets ponder upon this continuing for say another 5 years. We will then be in late 2016 and there will be nearly 20 years of static temperatures. How can this be convincingly explained? The cat could soon be out of the bag and this must be slowly dawning on the Team. Any paper published today could look ridiculous in 5 years time.
As regards clouds, one would almost say it was commonsense that they are a net negative feed back. Chemically, gaseous CO2 cannot promote cloud formation (although other particle pollutants emitted at the same time may of course seed cloud formation). The lag rate/response rate between temperature induced changes brought about by CO2 (if indeed it brings about any temperature change) does not support the view that CO2 has a causative effect on cloud formation.
Clouds have always been a fundamental problem for the AGW theory since changes in cloud pattern (including the time of day when they are formed) and/or the area extent of cloud cover could fully explain any real warming that has taken place these past 100 years or so, and there is insufficient data to dismiss this as being the driver behind the 20th century temperature record. This is, of course, a major failure behind the IPCC position, ‘it must be CO2 since we cannot think of anything else’.. Clouds could explain everything. The more so since there could well be fundamental issues with the science and DWLIR warming the oceans. .

Sometimes it an be easier to make a string of errors than we ever imagined. Then “just anybody” can assemble these “errors” into a document and spread it around the world.
For example: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/23_trenberth_errors.pdfTrenberth’s Twenty-Three Scientific Errors in One
Short Article
Kevin Trenberth (Rocky Mountain News, October 24), commenting on Mike Rosen’s article expressing legitimate doubts about the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore, makes 23 scientific mistakes, each of which falls in the direction of magnifying the unjustifiable alarm stoked by panicky politicians and extravagantly-funded environmentalists in cahoots with a shrinking clique of scientists in denial of observational climate data.
This practice must stop!

The Trenberth, Abraham, and Gleick immediate attack on the Spencer/Braswell findings as well as John Christy demonstrate a highly emotional sensitivity to opposing scientific research. Clearly the Spencer/Braswell/Christy empirical science is undercutting the “team’s” taxpayer-funded, IPCC-supported model climate projections. The US Congress is looking for areas to save money. Urge your favorite Congressman/Congresswoman to defund the “team.”

It’s probably been stated already, but including criticism of Dr. Christy to attempt to refute Dr. Spencer is way over the top. This makes their motivation transparent. It has nothing to do with the science, it has much to do with utilizing smear tactics against people with whom they disagree.
A 10y/o’s argument. The opinion piece had no science in it. It was simply a bit of blathering from angry people. It further held no logic. People that are known to have gotten their facts wrong are complaining about people that may have gotten their facts wrong? Trenberth and Abraham? You’ve got to be kidding me. Trenberth’s Y2K. And wasn’t Abraham forced to edit a response Monckton because he was libelous? Well, yes, yes he was. He was forced to erase 10 minutes of incorrect blathering because it was patently wrong. Peter Gleick? Wasn’t he the moron that stated, ““More extreme and violent climate is a direct consequence of human-caused climate change….” And, yet, we see quite the opposite occurring. Well, if we’re going to use fallacious arguments, one can easily state, “Consider the source of the criticism.”
Trenberth, Abraham, and Gleick. These are poster children for the preposterous. Why anyone would lend these people any credence is beyond me.

Can it be? Have I been reading Voltaire and Swift and Moliere and Shakespeare and myriad other tomes instead of WUWT?
No!
This is happening in my own time, for all the world to see.
Messrs. Trenberth, et al, seem not to notice that their words are no longer without scrutiny or challenge. They continue to work for their utopian dream, seemingly unaware of the ridicule and mistrust to which they are subjecting themselves and their cause.
By some turn of fate, if they are ultimately successful with their efforts, they would be wise to remember the fate of the Brownshirts and Trotsky and all true believers…
when the real barons usurp the power, the outspoken ‘faithful’ who promulgated the ‘revolution’ will be the first to lose their heads.

I saw Spencer and Trenberth testify before congress. It was already clear at that point that Trenberth’s method was personal attacks while Spencer was trying his best to stay on a discussion of the science. Spencer invited Trenberth to tell him where his science was wrong, right there during congressional testimony. Trenberth declined and continued with the personal attacks.

Brian H says:
September 4, 2011 at 10:07 pm
izen;
Your “resignation” narrative is elaborate BS. Wagner resigned because RS wouldn’t cave to the pressure from the Team to retract the article, and he had to decide whose side he was on.
His bumbling and confused “apology” is nothing more than a declaration of allegiance and obeisance to the Consensus, AKA the Hokey Team.

———–
Brian H,
I generally concur with your assessment of why Wagner resigned.
I would add the presumption that Wagner sent an apology to Trenberth because Trenberth was an outside influence on RS acting through Wagner to disrupt the S & B paper.
Unenlightened scientists.
John

Anthony:
At September 5, 2011 at 8:26 am Hugh Pepper asked,
“Where’s the libel? Legitimate criticism does not equal libel.”
And you have replied,
“Where’s your brain? Read it.”
I never thought I would ever say this, but I think Hugh Pepper has a point.
To be clear, I have not seen any “legitimate criticism” of the paper by Spencer & Braswell and the article by Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth is as base an attempt at character assassination as anybody could hope to see. Also, on WUWT and on Spencer’s blog I have defended Spencer and his work against the smears by Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth.
However, the smears are not “libel” unless they can be demonstrated to be factually untrue in a court of law. I am not a lawyer but I fail to see how that could be demonstrated, and I would welcome information from somebody competent to assess the law in this case.
The only statement in the article by Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth which is a prima faci case of libel says,
“Spencer, a University of Alabama, Huntsville, climatologist, and his colleagues have a history of making serious technical errors in their effort to cast doubt on the seriousness of climate change.”
This appears to be a serious libel in that it imputes a motive which – if true – would define Spencer as a pseudoscientist. However, I need a lawyer to spell out what would – or would not – be required for Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth to prove their point.
The statement
“this is not the first time the science conducted by Roy Spencer and colleagues has been found lacking”
can be shown to be true because Spencer and Christy have made improvements to their analyses. And this is not changed by the fact that every competent scientist makes improvements, corrections and adjustments in the light of new information.
The statement
“Remote Sensing is a fine journal for geographers, but it does not deal much with atmospheric and climate science”
can be said to not concern Spencer or Christy.
The statement
“As obvious and serious errors in that analysis were made public, Spencer and Christy were forced to revise their work several times and, not surprisingly, their findings agree better with those of other scientists around the world:”
is debateable concerning the word “serious” but it is a fact that Spencer and Christy considered the “errors” to be sufficient for them to make adjustments to their analyses.
The statement
“Over the years, Spencer and Christy developed a reputation for making serial mistakes that other scientists have been forced to uncover.”
is possibly libel if Spencer and Christy had not obtained such a “reputation” but I suspect Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth could find a few cronies willing to enter a court and to swear they thought this of Spencer and Christy.
The undoubted fact is that Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth have written a defamatory article which attempts to denigrate Spencer and Christy. But it seems likely that they obtained legal advice to ensure their article was not legally libel.
Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth are shown to be despicable by their action in publishing the smears of Spencer and Christy. But we already knew they were despicable. And despicable smears may not be libel. I would welcome a lawyer telling me whether or not the smears in the article by Abraham, Gleick, and Trenberth are or are not libel.
Richard
REPLY: My focus on libel is limited to the one sentence: ““Over the years, Spencer and Christy developed a reputation for making serial mistakes that other scientists have been forced to uncover.” This statement implies that their regular work product is different than that of other scientists who have their work reviewed by others, and is always wrong (by the use of the word serial). Examining the article, from my perspective it passes the four tests for libel:
1. it was published (PASS) 2. Spencer, Braswell, and Christy were clearly identified (PASS) 3. It does seriously injure the reputation of the named parties, especially Christy, who was not even an author of the paper. (PASS) 4. Fault, this is best argued in court of law. But it appears that the article had fault in including Christy, who was not part of the Spencer and Braswell paper, but maligned in a purposeful statement. Whether or not they rise tot he public figure higher standard is best left to lawyers, but it seems to me that we have 3, possibly 4 of the tests for libel met. See: http://www.splc.org/knowyourrights/legalresearch.asp?id=27
– Anthony

Of some interst is the stands taken on this junk science by Republican Congressman from Texas , Chairman of the House Science Committee, Ralph Hall.
Looks like a person of intrest as he is past the fear of un-election point in his life.http://www.ralphhall.house.gov/

I find it amazing that it took three of them to come up with this short personal attack. I read the article, and I thought to myself, “this is the kind of article that many internet trolls could manufacture in about 15 minutes”. It makes me wonder how many Phd climate alarmists it takes to screw in a light bulb.

I pointed out errors to Dr. A Dai and the mentor he cited, Trenberth, which they never bothered to correct. Dr. Dai published a paper fearmongering about droughts and based upon the old AR4 model results and did not discuss the implications of the model diagnostic literature at all. Especially egregious was missing Wentz’s 2007 paper in Science that reported the failure of the AR4 models to reproduce even one half of the increased precipitation seen in the observations.
Of course, based upon his work as an IPCC author, Trenberth doesn’t like adjusting model projections based upon the errors reported in the dagnostic literature at all, even when I pointed out to him that the correlated surface albedo bias reported by Roesch was comparable in magnitude to the CO2 forcing.

Here is a quote from Trenberth et al. : “…it is evident that this paper did not get an adequate peer review. It should have received an honest vetting.” First, I disagree that it did not get an adequate peer review. Reading Wagner’s resignation statement shows that it did. They simply didn’t like the results of that peer review, took it out on Wagner, and forced him to resign.
[]As to a paper not receiving an honest vetting, an article Trenberth is a prime example of that. It appeared in 16 April 2010 issue of Science and is called „Tracking Earth’s Energy.“ Global net energy budget is shown as a graph that takes account of net radiation received, ocean heat content change and other net energy changes from melting glaciers etc. His graph shows it all adding up neatly until 2004 then energy starts to disappear. By 2008 eighty percent of global energy is “missing“ and he has no explanation for that.
[]I thought at first that some physical process could be behind it but upon re-reading the paper I noticed this sentence: “Since 2004 ~3000 Argo floats have provided regular temperature soundings of the upper 2000 m of the ocean, giving new confidence in the ocean heat content assessment.“ Now what do you know, new equipment goes on line and energy does a disappearing act! If I had been the reviewer I would have sent him back rechecking and calibrating the equipment until the discrepancy was resolved. But apparently papers by global warming big shots just get waved through.

Bob Tisdale says:
September 5, 2011 at 8:06 am
“And what’s the common denominator for Spencer and Braswell (2011) and McLean et al (2009)? ENSO.”
Absolutely. I wonder if they will ever figure out that ENSO is something more than statistical noise? I doubt it.
Thanks for your great work on ENSO, especially the challenge to Warmista that you posted recently, and all your great posts.

[Michael] Mann, a professor of meteorology and director of Penn State’s Earth System Science Center, is on sabbatical from Penn State. He is spending half his year writing a book and the other half advising Environmental Health Sciences, publisher of the DailyClimate.org and EHN.org, on climate science.

from Peter H. Gleick to Roger Pielke
date: Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 6:13 PM
subject:Re: thoughts
Roger, how is it that you and I can read the same thing and see things so differently?

How, indeed. And to expand on this question – how can Mr. Gleick participate in this blatant ad hominem attack on a fellow scientist when another does not? The answer that I am most comfortable with is one party lacks character and principle. Considering all the participants, this answer solves for all the authors in this sham response to the Spencer & Braswell paper.
The Pacific Institute where Mr. Gleick has been doing the people’s work for 24 years, really needs to reevaluate the disrepute Mr. Gleick brings to that organization. They would be better served to hire a curious scientist for the position.

Too see this in perspective, I strongly suggest readers spend some time studying Lysenkoism. This climate scam is not a religion, it is a political movement, where the main propagators manipulate and control the academic process for their own motives and benefit. They also indoctrinate the children … Which I find most despicable.

I have to admit, after reading this article I was too P.O.’d last night night to leave a comment. So far I have a perfect record at WUWT for not being [snipped] and I didn’t want to endanger that. First, I’d like to thank WillR for the wonderful link from SPPI re: Trenberth. In my estimation Trenberth is beneath contempt (along with Karl, Mann, Romm, Oppenheimer, Santer, Hanson, Schmidt, Jones, et al).
Drs. Spencer and Christy are amazing individuals. They are pure researchers and are at the absolute apex in their field. No other “climate scientist” (not even a ’72 Sc.D. from Berkley) on the planet comes close to the expertise these fine men possess. So let’s take a gander at their detractors. We have handy Andy Dessler from Texas A&M. Being the brightest bulb in the A&M climate string is like being being the smartest kid in the remedial reading class. A while back Spencer and Dessler had an email back and forth that Roy posted on his site. In my view Dessler succeeded in proving he’s a dolt.
Then we have “climate scientist” John Abraham who is an associate professor of engineering at some no-name college up north. He teaches undergraduate engineering classes and is “expert” in heat transfer. He’s your go-to guy for air conditioning questions but he doesn’t know spit from fat meat when it comes to climate. It’s interesting that I had never heard of Peter Gleick until this little dust up. Maybe it’s just me, but I wouldn’t turn to a hydrologist and professional activist for insightful commentary on satellite analysis.
That leaves us with Kevin “missing heat” Trenberth. Let’s just hope that in 2013 President Perry will completely defund NCAR. Perhaps the odious Trenberth will slither back to New Zealand and fabricate data in his home country.

Ahhh … climate scientists, rising to the occasion once again. A great big circle of friends, each reviewing each other’s works and each grabbing fistfuls of the billions in dollars of research grants. And if you’re not a part of that circle, look out! Reminds me of a cartoon by Thomas Nast on the corruption of the Tammany Ring, where each member points to the person next to him when asked, “‘Who stole the people’s money.’ Do tell … ‘Twas him.”

One would think that these three scientists would behave in the normal manner if they have such a huge problem with this paper. They would publish their own paper in response. They would firmly but politely respond with factual arguments
But they have chosen a much different response using personal insults, innuendo and smears.
You can almost smell the fear in their childish response. Fear that what they have known for a long time and have concealed has now been revealed. Fear that their primo positions on the AGW Gravy train are in jeopardy, fear their life’s work will soon be piled on the junk heap of other failed “science” fads and group thinking like Eugenics and Lysenkoism.
Yes it is fear and we can smell it because this trio reeks of it. An idiot could figure out this cheap & tawdry personal attack is a desperate attempt to preserve their top spot on the science fraud pecking order.

>> Hugh Pepper says:
September 5, 2011 at 8:26 am
Where’s the libel? Legitimate criticism does not equal libel. <<
Thanks. Your response is another data point to add to the growing list of proof that climate science is just a greedy new-age religion. No one but a religious fanatic would consider a pack of lies, exaggerations and halftruths to be 'legitimate criticism.'

Richard M says (September 4, 2011 at 6:34 pm): “It appears that Trenberth is extremely angry.”
Because Dr. Spencer found his “missing heat”??? Heck, if I’ve lost something and somebody finds it for me, I’m usually pretty happy about it.

We can’t ever underestimate the lengths that Trenberth and his CAGW colleagues will go to in order to save their reputations and funding. They know full well that climate science is not just a science, but a very high profile political and economic horse that they are strapped to. If that horse stumbles, they are toast. They cannot afford to lose because their careers, their income, and quite possibly their very sense of self, would be lost.
They are far past the point of scientific criticism… we are witnessing compromised advocate scientists scrambling to protect the very definition of who they think they are. They are motivated by the simplest of primal concerns.

I find it amazing that it took three of them to come up with this short personal attack. I read the article, and I thought to myself, “this is the kind of article that many internet trolls could manufacture in about 15 minutes”. It makes me wonder how many Phd climate alarmists it takes to screw in a light bulb.

This trend continues: On Tuesday the journal Geophysical Research Letters will publish a peer-reviewed study by Texas A&M University atmospheric scientist Andrew Dessler that undermines Spencer’s arguments about the role of clouds in the Earth’s energy budget.
We only wish the media would cover these scientific discoveries with similar vigor and enthusiasm that they displayed in tackling Spencer’s now-discredited findings.
First off, the climate ‘rapid response team’ has a journal’s editorial board on their side if they can get the paper written, reviewed, and published that fast. Second of all, you can’t get much more of a ‘rapid response’ than declaring findings ‘now discredited’ before the paper is even published.

Tilo Reber says:
September 5, 2011 at 9:44 am
I find it amazing that it took three of them to come up with this short personal attack. I read the article, and I thought to myself, “this is the kind of article that many internet trolls could manufacture in about 15 minutes”. It makes me wonder how many PhD climate alarmists it takes to screw in a light bulb.
It makes me wonder how many PhD climate alarmists it takes to screw up a light bulb.
There. Fixed that minor typo for you. 8<)

The bottom line is the team are caught up in a situation that is hinting at being a house of cards.
They can’t account for the missing energy from the “budget” and they are terrified Spencer is onto something.
This is the endgame, and the flat temps can’t be explained away forever.

It is this massive discrepancy between the content of the published paper and the claims made for it that resulted in Wagner concluding that the RS journal had damaged its reputation because of his decision to publish a paper that was then exploited to make claims beyond its range or remit.
What specious reasoning…
Neither the publisher of a journal, nor its editorial board, are responsible for media or blog treatments of any article that appeared there—unless they placed the media treatments themselves.
Otherwise, we’d expect to see the editors of journals that published pro-CAGW articles being fired after Al Gore mentioned the articles.
Good luck with that.

Dr. Dave says:
September 5, 2011 at 10:07 am
“…Being the brightest bulb in the A&M climate string is like being being the smartest kid in the remedial reading class…”
______________________________________________________
No Aggie Joakes!

I think it’s hilarious that Trenberth and others claim to have received an “apology” from the journal’s publisher and the (now ex) editor. When a field minister in a cult makes a mistake in preaching, they are usually coerced/encouraged to apologize to the cult leader. It’s like Trenberth *wants* to admit that he is a high priest in a dogma. Hilarious. These guys are so-darn set on their path they have no clue just how bad they look.

Shona says:
September 5, 2011 at 2:41 am
The title says it all “damaging impact of Spencer’s science”. Damaging to whom? To Trenberth it would seem.
Is this paper dynamite or what?
I still haven’t seen any rebuttals, just ad hom hand waving.

And that’s exactly how the lay public is going to view this. It was an esoteric scientific paper until the flying monkeys went ape. Now it appears like the flying monkeys have something to hide.
I’m not sure who the geniuses are running the PR on this, but I’m glad the team has the best and brightest working for them.

Jer0me says:
September 5, 2011 at 4:24 am
But where are the trolls today, I have to ask……..?

Don’t worry. They are busy receiving their marching orders, with careful instructions, on how to best phrase their comments. We (the blogosphere) and the MSM will soon be inundated with “bot” cliches and similar sounding banalities. GK

paulhan says:
September 5, 2011 at 2:17 am
“Wow, Trenberth has really jumped the shark on this one. The institutions that Wagner has worked in are a who’s who of establishments pushing the whole AGW meme. My guess (slightly tin foil) is that Wagner allowed the paper through in the full knowledge that he would then seek a retraction from the editorial board, in order to cause the maximum embarassment to Spencer and Braswell.”
******
I think it’s much simpler than that. Wagner is the figurehead editor. He may not even have read the S&B paper. Wang did all the work. When the article was published, Wagner copped flak, and tried to get the article retracted. But he found that proper procedure had been followed by Wang and the reviewers, as he himself states in his letter..

Trenberth gets laughed at to his own face more times per day than he wants to see. He’s also still under fear of being indicted.
How would YOUR MENTAL HEALTH be HOLDING OUT AFTER YOU WERE EXPOSED at the CENTER of a WORLDWIDE SCIENTIFIC FRAUD AND FUNDING SCAM?
Those hicks are in and they’re in deep. We can be upset all we want, but whenever those HICKS of NON SCIENCE open the MORNING NEWS, THEY EXPECT to see THEMSELVES or their FRIENDS,
I.N.D.I.C.T.E.D.
THAT’s what’s got Trenberth so upset. Life as a revealed SERIAL FRAUD has destroyed him.
Stay tuned as we all watch why civilization can grind frauds like him and Mann and Schneider and Schmidt and Hansen to dust and never hiccup. They thought it was funny when they were scuttling the electoral process with CLIMATE TERROR – INSTALL OUR POLICES despite whatever elections, or YOU’RE ALL GONNA DIE.
Now we’ve found out the SERIOUSNESS of their EVIL it’s starting to make them grind their teeth instead of sleeping well at night.

richard verney says:
September 5, 2011 at 3:11 am
“The problem is that in these 10 years immeasurable damage will be inflicted on the European, and in particular upon the UK economy. The present energy policies of the UK and Germany are mad.”
********
The German energy policies look pretty sensible to me. They are scrapping their old (and expensive to replace) nuclear power stations and and replacing them with coal. Germany has gamed AGW to great national advantage, unlike the UK, which has just gamed it for personal gain.

My earlier comment made me think if I was a history teacher in 100 years and asked a student to report on the peer-reviewed, scientific method applied to the 2 papers (GRL (Thursday?) and Remote Sensing), what the report would look like?
Then realise I’m a popcorn eating participant.

Tilo Reber says:
September 5, 2011 at 9:44 am
……..It makes me wonder how many Phd climate alarmists it takes to screw in a light bulb
They dont use light bulbs! Light bulbs are a major cause of global warming.
They are just flailing around in the dark!

Wow,
I have had some interactions with Roy over the years and he is a stand up guy trying to get at the truth. These three seem to think that bullying will make people more convinced of their case rather then less. Wrong !
Very very interesting response.
D.

@Amoorhouse says:
September 5, 2011 at 12:33 pm
“It makes me wonder how many Phd climate alarmists it takes to screw in a light bulb.”
All seven of ’em. Five to do the chanting and holding the one to put a finger in the socket and the last one to keep watch at the butt of the socket lad to see if the butt bulb lights up sufficiently green enough. :p

david eaton says:
September 5, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Tilo Reber says:
September 5, 2011 at 9:44 am
……..It makes me wonder how many Phd climate alarmists it takes to screw in a light bulb
They dont use light bulbs! Light bulbs are a major cause of global warming.
They are just flailing around in the dark!
And a joke is born. Brilliant.

Wow. You all live in an echo chamber that is devoid of scientific rigor. Do you actually think that the US National Academy of Sciences and its many counterparts around the world are part of a vast conspiracy to hype climate science? If anything, they and the IPCC have consistently underestimated the rate and magnitude of change. They all take this seriously. Most scientists who are qualified to engage in climate science discussions take this seriously. Spencer and Christy have committed serial errors in their science. Look at yourselves and see who the bully is. Trenberth et al. pointed a spotlight on errors in Spencer and Christy’s work, and you chose to respond with attacks devoid of substance but full of name calling.

For those who believe that the Spencer & Bracewell paper is wrong should do a proper scientific rebuttal. By comparing and contrasting the arguments flaws and gaps in the knowledge are exposed on all sides. More extreme, unsupported, arguments are sidelined.
Problem is, that CAGW is a series of unlikely events, with hidden assumptions, each stacked one on top of the other. Dr Spencer exposes the biggest weakness of all. Even if the paper is weaker than the Consensus view, it casts doubt on that science.

“Paul Deacon says:
September 5, 2011 at 2:10 pm
The German energy policies look pretty sensible to me. They are scrapping their old (and expensive to replace) nuclear power stations and and replacing them with coal. Germany has gamed AGW to great national advantage, unlike the UK, which has just gamed it for personal gain.”
And buying nuclear energy from France!

Over the past few hours, I’ve come to see the “Attack of the three Stooges” not as an attack on Spencer and Christy ( who wasn’t involved in the article) but, rather, a warning to other crimatologists to stay in line.

Very soon we will have elections, and who knows, a new President, Congress and Senate.
The new AG could use the FBI and the RICO statute to see if there is any evidence of collusion in both the refereeing of Journals and in the reviewing of Grants.

since when is the proper professionlal conduct decorum an option; we once thought was a given; i feel I must also state this in French: ‘ mais n’y a-t-il plus de code de déontoliogie régisant la climatologie?’
Of course where is the larger scientific community condeming this must recent outlandish behavivor by Tremberth et. al. towards Christy et al?
.

Rational Observer [not ‘Debate’] says September 5, 2011 at 3:28 pm:
Wow. You all live in an echo chamber that is devoid of scientific rigor. Do you actually think that the US National Academy of Sciences and its many counterparts around the world are part of a vast conspiracy to hype climate science? If anything, they and the IPCC have consistently underestimated the rate and magnitude of change. They all take this seriously. Most scientists who are qualified to engage in climate science discussions take this seriously.
Spencer and Christy have committed serial errors in their science. …

Would it be too much to have a couple, maybe even three ‘serial’ errors elucidated*?
Pretty please?
.
*Elucidate –
Make something clear; explain, to make lucid especially by explanation or analysis; to list in detail.
.

Trenberth is clearly both obnoxious and foolish. As a Kiwi I hereby bequeath him to the U.S. and to NCAR which has obviously addled both his brain and his manners.
The contrast with Pielke Snr’s restraint, decorum and judgment could hardly be greater.

Here’s another thought as to what might have happened … Trenberth took on the responsibility for the team of keeping skeptical papers out of journals. He contacted the various journal editors and got their agreement to cooperate. Spencer submits his paper and Wagner misses it. Trenberth comes unglued and tells Wagner he is toast. Wagner tries to get the paper retracted and fails. He then resigns and apologizes to appease Trenberth.
The team is now trying their best to provide a way in which AR5 can ignore the Spencer paper. However, they are so angry they screwed up that they are screwing up more.

John Peterson Myers – “When the temperature is above 50 F and it’s not raining, Myers regularly publishes EnvironmentalHealthNews.org and DailyClimate.org from a platform in the woods near his house. Turkeys, foxes, turtles, deer and other creatures meander by. In spring the trees above are full of migrating warblers.Platform in the woods picture.
Lucky guy …
.

“And that generates a couple of questions: Why did it take the three of them? Do they lack opinions individually, but have them collectively?. And what happened, did RealClimate with its much greater reach pass on posting their opinion?”
It is axiomatic within popular climate science that numbers equal credibility. Therefore, three cranks are three times more credible than one crank. If you really want to prove something silly you’ll need a whole lot of cranks.

Does anyone have Dressler’s rebut? I’m begging for it!!! A month? Hahhahahh!!
If it gets published, that’s the final nail. ……. I’m a layman, but if it gets published tomorrow, I will, or anyone else familiar with the discussion, smoke it. I pray that it gets published.

Rational Observer says:
September 5, 2011 at 3:28 pm“Do you actually think that the US National Academy of Sciences and its many counterparts around the world are part of a vast conspiracy to hype climate science?”
This is the logical fallacy known as “appeal to incredulity.” Stage magicians posing as mind readers use it to great effect. They pull a presumed random person out of the audience and have him assure them that he and the magician have never met, and then the magician reveals amazing secrets about him. Of course, they have not only met, but carefully rehearsed the act. Yet, the audience falls for it every time because, you know, the guy just couldn’t have lied about it.
Yes, I believe a mass collusion is quite possible, even likely.
Conspiracy is really not the right word, though. Conspiracy implies thoughtful and malignant planning. Herd mentality is closer to the mark. The members follow the leaders in order to benefit from the safety in numbers conferred by being in the herd.
This is hardly an outrageous proposal. Group Dynamics and the psychology of crowds have been actively investigated for well over a century. The 20th century witnessed the greatest propagation of mass delusion in the history of mankind, with the rise of Naziism, Fascism, and Communism, which led directly to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. If the entire, highly educated nation of Germany could fall head over heels in adoration of a psychopath like Adolf Hitler, how can you imagine that a relatively minor meeting of minds in the world’s scientific establishments, uniting them in a common cause, is outside the realm of possibility?

In re: what Kip Hansen says:
September 5, 2011 at 9:53 am
I would speculate that the link is UVA Charlottesville. Perform a search within this comment thread for Charlottesville. Maybe an old pal network but just guessing.

Rational Observer says:
September 5, 2011 at 3:28 pm“Do you actually think that the US National Academy of Sciences and its many counterparts around the world are part of a vast conspiracy to hype climate science?”
This is the logical fallacy known as “appeal to incredulity.” Stage magicians posing as mind readers use it to great effect. They pull a presumed random person out of the audience and have him assure them that he and the magician have never met, and then the magician reveals amazing secrets about him. Of course, they have not only met, but carefully rehearsed the act. Yet, the audience falls for it every time because, you know, the guy just couldn’t have lied about it.
Yes, I believe a mass collusion is quite possible, even likely.
Conspiracy is really not the right word, though. Conspiracy implies thoughtful and malignant planning. Herd mentality is closer to the mark. The members follow the leaders in order to benefit from the safety in numbers conferred by being in the herd.
This is hardly an outrageous proposal. Group Dynamics and the psychology of crowds have been actively investigated for well over a century.
The 20th century witnessed the greatest propagation of mass delusion in the history of mankind, with the rise of Na*iism, Fa*cism, and Co*munism, which led directly to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. If the entire, highly educated nation of Germany could fall head over heels in adoration of a psychopath like A**lf Hi**er, how can you imagine that a relatively minor meeting of minds in the world’s scientific establishments, uniting them in a common cause, is outside the realm of possibility?
(I had to put asterisks in to bypass the spam filter – I’m certainly not equating the climate establishment with Na**s, just highlighting the ne plus ultra argument against the idea that mass blocks of otherwise reasonable people cannot find themselves acting in unison with ultimately destructive disposition.)

I’ve always respected Einstein for the reason that he could differ from Bohr and others and try to disprove their ideas and explain his latest thought experiment to them on walks sometimes. He would accept that he was wrong and try again to figure things out.
It is said on his 70th birthday he made this quote: “You think I sit here in calm satisfaction looking at my life’s work but I do not see a single thing that will stand. I may not have been on the right track after all”.
That my friends takes balls. Disagree with the man, the person or his science but you got to respect that constant looking for answers and never giving up. If he was on the wrong track it has been one hell of an interesting and educating detour!

When one considers that it has not significantly warmed for 10 years and Trenberth has absolutely no idea where the missing heat is. . . .I suppose ad hominems was his only recourse to a paper that in effect simply states the facts.

Amoorhouse says: September 5, 2011 at 12:33 pm
[ He just stands holding the bulb in the socket and the whole world revolves around him.]
Not possible, their models indicate that there is no ice at the North Pole, so there is nothing for them to stand on. If they tried to provide any real illumination they would be sunk.

OT: did anyone see the Axe commercial :’the world is facing an unprecedented challenge, girls are getting hotter and hotter… etc”. Clearly the joke is on the Global warming alarmism. That shows these guys are now the butt of jokes in mainstream commercials.

jeez says on September 5, 2011 at 12:34 am
Here’s the big Kahuna behind Daily Climate.
John Peterson Myers
Look at this guy’s twitter feed and decide if you think the Daily Climate is run by someone with a particular political bent. Kinda hard to tell! /sarchttps://mobile.twitter.com/#!/petemyers

Rational Observer says:
September 5, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Wow. You all live in an echo chamber that is devoid of scientific rigor. Do you actually think that the US National Academy of Sciences and its many counterparts around the world are part of a vast conspiracy to hype climate science?
No, not all of us. It is fairly clear looking at Trenberth’s “travesty” email that he sincerely believes that CO2 is making the climate warmer. However, none of the modelers addressed in the email could find the “missing heat.” Weirdly, rather than examine the theory for error, Trenberth blames the data. Look up the email and read it if you doubt that. Spencer and Braswell suggest that it may never have been there to begin with.
You don’t need a conspiracy, just economics. Money for research is always in short supply in any scientific field. If a researcher or researchers open up a new facet in a field that offers apparent opportunities for early investors to profit, or much worse, for politicians to shine as they advance regulations to “protect” us, and even worse to establish bureaus and increase funding for them, several things happen: venture capital moves in hoping for a big win; politicians, usually (but not always) democrats these days, bring “urgent” legislation to vote; agencies charged with or created to implement the regulations that derive from the legislation, increase in size and become more important “cost centers.” All of this translates into more funding for the right scientists. Government and private grants, spin-off research, start-ups, IPOs, beefed up employment of trained researchers and experts all mean more money.
Compounding this are sincere if not entirely competent researchers who were trained in an era of Post-Modern scientific “responsibility” rather than integrity, and politically correct “precautionary” action – AND – whose research budgets just geometrically increased in size. The damage “Spencer’s science” does is call this all into question.…
They all take this seriously. Most scientists who are qualified to engage in climate science discussions take this seriously. Spencer and Christy have committed serial errors in their science. Look at yourselves and see who the bully is. Trenberth et al. pointed a spotlight on errors in Spencer and Christy’s work, and you chose to respond with attacks devoid of substance but full of name calling.
Trenberth et al. did not point out ANY errors in Spencer and *Braswell’s* work. Worse, Christy was not an author, so including him is very likely libelous. If you read Christy’s comment above, you will note that he discusses those errors, their discovery and correction. The use of the term “serial” by T. et al. is demonization, a peculiarly vile and virulent form of “name calling.” It evokes associations with serial killers, rapists and similar social monsters.

Indur M. Goklany wrote;
“Applying Occam’s Razor to the Missing Heat Problem — perhaps there is no missing heat.”
IMHO Exactly Correct, the “missing heat” is in fact propagating away from the Earth as a spherical infrared wavefront that is exactly X + D light years away at this instant in time. X represents the elapsed time since the heat arrived as sunlight (100 light years for the sunlight arriving back in 1911). D represents the slight delay introduced by several quick side trips as backradiation. D is in units of light-milliseconds and a proper unit conversion is necessary when summing it with the light-years.
Each time the heat takes a side trip back towards the surface more than 50% is lost to space. So after as little as 10 trips as backradiation the missing heat is much less than 1% of the arriving heat. The units of light-milliseconds (a unit of distance) reflects the observation that light energy travels at the speed of light and can go from the surface to the top of the atmosphere in a few milliseconds.
Crazy huh ?
Cheers, Kevin.

Rational Observer wrote;
“Wow. You all live in an echo chamber that is devoid of scientific rigor. Do you actually think that the US National Academy of Sciences and its many counterparts around the world are part of a vast conspiracy to hype climate science?”
I for one (I do not speak for others) have not offered any “vast conspiracy” thoughts on this blog.
However I am aware of NUMEROUS historic examples where the widely accepted “consensus” turned out to be completely WRONG;
1) Stomach Ulcers are caused by stress and spicy foods
2) Lobotomies’ are an effective treatment for mental health problems (FYI the “doctor” who “perfected” the lobotomy operation won a Nobel Prize, I bet Mr. Nobel was PROUD of that one)
3) Cold Fusion exists in our laboratory
4) Filling aluminum cans with people inside with pure oxygen (ie early Apollo designs) is a good decision
5) Etc
6) Etc
The list is very very long and includes that whole “who revolves around whom” thing regarding the Sun and the Earth.
Following the scientific method does indeed lead to enhanced knowledge of how things work.
Relying on consensus and demeaning the character of those that disagree are sure signs of a failed hypothesis that rightly belongs in the dustbin of history. Hopefully blogs like these will help to accelerate the final arrival at that destination.
Cheers, Kevin.

Judith Curry writes:“JC conclusion: […] This is not the way to do it, and this kind of behavior, particularly from […] who is in a position of responsibility at a government lab […] will backfire on them.”
Say it with a song:“So now you’d better STOP and rebuild all your ruin.
Peace & trust can win the day despite all your losin’.”
— Led Zeppelin

The points summarised from the dailyclimate article:
1. Firstly, the main crux and premise for their outrage is that they believe the science doesn’t hold up.
2. The responsibility of the authors are to give significant resistance to their premise i.e. observational data does not fit with models. This was shirked by allowing publishing in another journal, for Geography. This doesn’t allow the rope building knowledge that is accumulated by experts in the field in which it allows for fundamental concepts such as, sensitivity and internal feedbacks descriptions, which are which? What methods were used, are they practical given the discussion, conclusion? Have alternate studies have been conducted which may refute this study — is the study able to better answer questions that others have not addressed? To be accurately described and logically assessed, it may not be required that the field itself give it a pass mark, but if doesn’t provide something substantial, or serious errors are found, or it is overly-simplistic, then it seems to be a prominent issue that skeptical science is born out of being contrairian, because it isn’t skeptical of something which supports its own mindset.
3. The idea that Spencer and Christy provided valuable insight is somewhat inhibited by the fact that they came to counter conclusions to the general community of climate scientists, attempting to show global cooling in satellite data. This was then shown to contain serious error. To then claim that there’s more counter evidence, in that models do not adequately reflect the current temperatures, is to deny a substantive reply from other scientists who have a vast base of knowledge in the area. This helps to elevate the paper into accounting for more than it’s own minutae from specialists in this area, and doesn’t give it a tick of approval just because it is ‘technically correct’. This is the most aggravating issue, that without knowledge of what is already known, you can’t adequately evaluate whether this research elevates knowledge, or if it flies in the face of what has already been shown in many other lines of evidence.
The vitriol regarding how they are ‘attacked’ because the science is not settled has totally thrown me from being skeptical, into having to go uncover what is actually written in the Spencer and Christy paper. I don’t believe the responses are warranted from what appears to be passive and composed responses by people who do believe a case for CO2 has summarily accounted for the scientific issues addressed in this paper.

Perhaps Wolfgang Wagner needs to consult with Rajendra K. Pachauri on how to keep a job in this business. On the other hand, perhaps I can give some pointers as well on what sort of things are important and what will be overlooked. According to http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7026932.ece
the following paragraph appears:
“In an interview with The Times Robert Watson said that all the errors exposed so far in the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in overstatements of the severity of the problem.”

Rational Observer wrote;
“Wow. You all live in an echo chamber that is devoid of scientific rigor. Do you actually think that the US National Academy of Sciences and its many counterparts around the world are part of a vast conspiracy to hype climate science?”
I for one (I do not speak for others) have not offered any “vast conspiracy” thoughts on this blog.
However I am aware of NUMEROUS historic examples where the widely accepted “consensus” turned out to be completely WRONG;
1) Stomach Ulcers are caused by stress and spicy foods
2) Lobotomies’ are an effective treatment for mental health problems (FYI the “doctor” who “perfected” the lobotomy operation won a Nobel Prize, I bet Mr. Nobel was PROUD of that one)
3) Cold Fusion exists in our laboratory
4) Filling aluminum cans with people inside with pure oxygen (ie early Apollo designs) is a good idea
The list is very very long and includes that whole “who revolves around whom” thing regarding the Sun and the Earth.
Following the scientific method does indeed lead to enhanced knowledge of how things work.
Relying on consensus and demeaning the character of those that disagree are sure signs of a failed hypothesis that rightly belongs in the dustbin of history. Hopefully blogs like these will help to accelerate the final arrival at that destination.
Cheers, Kevin.

“Whilst I shouldn’t feel sorry for Trenberth, given the brutality of attacks by his ilk on other scientists, I do. He had a career, he had a bright future. He used to be sought after for advice from the highest officials of many countries. They are now fighting a desperate rear guard action trying … rather like the Nazi’s desperately cobbled together units of boys and old men, and shot any that refused, so the climate “Reich” is desperate to stop their reputation haemorrhaging and is clearly bringing huge pressure on any and every editor to “tow the line of doomsday global warming”.
I have the same ambivalent feelings. These are not happy men. They face professional ruin which is a form of annihilation as far as the id is concerned. Of course they’re full of rage; it’s a perfectly predictable response.
That said, there’s another part of me that yearns for their comeuppance. They’re doing so much damage, that it’s really rather unforgivable.

I know there’s something going on…
The Richard Black piece wrote for thw BBC covering the resignation of Wolfgang
Wagner from his post as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Remote Sensing
missed the fact that Herr Professor Wagner retains his full time tenured position
(day job) with the Vienna University of Technology.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-envionment-14768574
Over the weekend Mr. Black’s write-up made it as a hit to the 5th “Most Popular”
story on the entire BBC News online web site. Now, on early Tuesday morning,
Mr. Black’s story doesn’t even make it to the top 5 stories under the “Enivronmental”
section when you scroll down and click on that link. It’s gone as in
demoted to online obscurity.
If fact, when you look at Mr. Black’s list of recently authored material he takes
or is given credit for on the BBC site at:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/correspondents/richardblack
it’s not there either.
There’s something going on…

LOL,
The “Team” has been so terrified of a science paper.That they are babbling all over the place.To the point of possibly libeling someone not even an author of the science paper.
That for me indicate just how low they regard science research as being a necessary medium for advancing the understanding of the subject matter.After all it does not fit with their climate propaganda.
If the paper was truly bad.It would die all by itself in time.But their reactions to the paper they believe is really really bad.Makes no sense.Since it would be normally ignored by most of the rank and file scientists.Therefore deep down they KNOW it is a good science paper,that contradicts what they believe in.
That is why they are going overboard in their pathetic attempt to demonize the paper and the people who produced it.
Their behavior is clearly anti science.

How many climate psychologists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Only one…. but that damn incandescent bulb really has to want to change!
Remember when a ‘swirly’ was not a light bulb… and not a pleasant way to get your hair washed at all?!

a bit of fun with (daily climate) Myers, Mann and other interested parties…
Pennfuture’s Podcast:
30 Oct 2010: Global Warming 2010 – Creating jobs and saving the planet
On September 20 in Philadelphia, PennFuture, the Academy of Natural Sciences and the American Cities Foundation hosted a standing room only event on climate destruction and why we need to act now, featuring Bill McKibben, world-renowned environmentalist, author and founder of the international 350.org climate campaign…
3 July 2010: Dr. Michael Mann – A Profile in Courage
Dr. Michael Mann, internationally respected climate scientist at Penn State University is a true profile in courage. He has endured attacks on his work and on him personally by the minions of the polluters for years. And each set of attacks has resulted in the same thing – his vindication…
PennFuture’s Heather Sage interviewed Dr. Mann this week as the most recent report was published, totally vindicating him. This interview shows that under that mild mannered exterior is a man of steely courage…
Smeargate – the smear campaign against Dr. Mann and the other Nobel Prize winning climate scientists – is the real scandal. And right-wing apologists for the polluters, like the Commonwealth Foundation, who attempted to discredit these scientists by creating the “Climategate” scandal out of thin air, must be called on their behavior. Matt Brouillette, executive director of the Commonwealth Foundation should “man up” and issue an apology to Dr. Mann…
Morning Panel from WHE Conference – New Science
21 April 2010: This panel is moderated by Dr. John Peterson Myers — called Pete by everyone — who is a genuine rock star in the field of Environment Health…
21 April 2010: Here come the rubber ducky people! The secret danger to everyday things
Pete Myers started this session with a dramatic reading of the Rubber Ducky song. Poetry in action!…
21 April 2010: Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator, speaks to conferencehttp://www.pennfuturepodcast.org/rss
Health & Environmental Funders’ Network – Steering Committeehttp://www.hefn.org/about-us/steering-committee

These are Stalinist tactics against Spencer et al. The only difference I can see is there is no NKVD equivalent….yet.
Anyone want to bet Spencer will not be allowed to rebut Dessler’s crap-through-a-goose paper?

Bart says:
September 5, 2011 at 6:18 @ Rational Observer
“Do you actually think that the US National Academy of Sciences and its many counterparts around the world are part of a vast conspiracy to hype climate science?”
Conspiracy is really not the right word, though. Conspiracy implies thoughtful and malignant planning. Herd mentality is closer to the mark. The members follow the leaders in order to benefit from the safety in numbers conferred by being in the herd.
=========================
“Herd mentality”. That is spot on, Bart.
And Groupthink Disorder. A strong, strong maladjustment to logic….closely akin to the groupthink disorder.
How is it that we can send probes to Jupiter, engineer skyscrapers that defy gravity, and create musical symphonic masterpieces…yet we still manage to resort to becoming yes-men when it aligns with whatever cognitive dissonance we are believing at the moment.
Psychologists and sociologists are going to be studying the CAGW scam for a very long long time.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

This is usual practice for the Team. Lindzen and Choi had to go to Asia to find a publication for their rebuttal.
The Team has pretty much cleansed the editorial boards in the US and Europe. I notice that Remote Sensing has a Chinese mailing address.

It may not be October, but this strikes me as an “October Surprise.”
An “October Surprise” is an attempt to influence people’s impressions just before an election, or just before an important hearing or meeting. Part of the strategy involves not allowing the impressed people the normal time most require to weigh the evidence.
Sadly, there are cases where an “October Surprise” has no basis in fact. It is merely a smear. However, by the time the evidence is weighed, and the smear is seen as merely a smear, the election or hearing or meeting is over.
Americans are becoming increasing cynical and jaded, when it comes to “October Surprises.” The attempt to smear Bush’s reelection chances using falsified National Guard records might have worked in 1974, but it harmed the reputation of Dan Rather more than George Bush, when it was the “October Surprise” of 2004.
If the smear discussed in this post turns out to be an “October Surprise,” a purely political hoop-la aimed at impressing minds before a meeting, (AR5?) and to have no basis in scientific truth-seeking, it will reflect very badly on Trenberth. It is one thing to seek funding. It is quite another to screw fellow scientists while doing so.
It is a sad truth that genius often walks hand in hand with poverty, and therefore both Bach and Shakespeare had to bow before the royalty of their time. Great minds must be humble before lesser minds, when lesser minds hold the wealth and power. However Bach and Shakespeare didn’t screw their fellow artists. They used their minds to produce great work. It is a waste of a mind to use it to devise ways to screw others. In fact it leads to a mind, in a sense, rotting.

Disko Troop says:
September 5, 2011 at 7:28 am (Edit)
Just a small point but the SA/ ANC government is far from being stable. Their own Youth League is threatening them in large and small ways and they have passed a bill that severely limits free speech.

Robert
Too see this in perspective, I strongly suggest readers spend some time studying Lysenkoism. This climate scam is not a religion, it is a political movement, where the main propagators manipulate and control the academic process for their own motives and benefit. They also indoctrinate the children … Which I find most despicable.
I entirely agree; a religion implies belief which is an impediment to effortlessly flipping from “AGW means no more snowy winters” to “AGW causes cold winters” when the party line changes.
This may be apocryphal but it accurately represents the mindset of the Alarmists:
Chairman of the Hungarian Communist Party to his Central Committee:
“Come off it comrades. Have we really got to the point where we believe our own propaganda?”

The world is full of crappy science papers and even the good ones often have flaws. But why does this make anyone ANGRY? If it is bad it should be easy to show it is bad. And who made Trenberth an official overseer that he should get an apology? Finally, the hubris of the Team is that they alone never make a mistake (and thus will never admit one).

Craig Loehle,
“But why does this make anyone ANGRY? If it is bad it should be easy to show it is bad.”
The problem is, Craig, that the modus operandi of the team, is to pinpoint the most minor irregularities, and inflate them in importance and then trot out the line that the paper is seriously flawed. This spreads through the MSM at the speed of light, and nobody remembers that the only problems were minor and probably irrelevant.

Re:
“Indur M. Goklany says:
September 5, 2011 at 11:50 am
Applying Occam’s Razor to the Missing Heat Problem — perhaps there is no missing heat.”
Heresy! The models dictate that it must be there!!
From Gleick in Forbes:
“The Spencer and Braswell paper fails in these requirements. But this is also the way science works: someone makes a scientific claim and others test it. If it holds up to scrutiny, it become part of the scientific literature and knowledge, safe until someone can put forward a more compelling theory that satisfies all of the observations, agrees with physical theory, and fits the models”http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2011/09/02/paper-disputing-basic-science-of-climate-change-is-fundamentally-flawed-editor-resigns-apologizes/
cart/horse… uff da

@ KevinK, September 5, 2011 at 7:57 pm
“However I am aware of NUMEROUS historic examples where the widely accepted “consensus” turned out to be completely WRONG;
1) Stomach Ulcers are caused by stress and spicy foods
2) Lobotomies’ are an effective treatment for mental health problems (FYI the “doctor” who “perfected” the lobotomy operation won a Nobel Prize, I bet Mr. Nobel was PROUD of that one)
3) Cold Fusion exists in our laboratory
4) Filling aluminum cans with people inside with pure oxygen (ie early Apollo designs) is a good idea
The list is very very long and includes that whole “who revolves around whom” thing regarding the Sun and the Earth.”
1. It was a widely held belief. I could be wrong, but I don’t think it was claimed that this was scientifically proven, just that it just seemed like the most plausible explanation. Diet and stress can aggravate an ulcer so the recommended treatment was at least somewhat helpful. See http://www.cdc.gov/ulcer/history.htm and note the where word consensus appears.
2. They worked. We use drugs now.
3. No. Cold fusion was never accepted by most scientists in the field.
4. This is not science.
“5.” The Earth centric view was held before the modern scientific method was widely accepted.
The real history of science is much more interesting then this list of misunderstanding you have about science history.

They will not even accept that the measured data from the satellite was correct. Talk about denial.
The forth ‘maybe’ is the funniest, read the question. It is talking about the presentation of data in the paper, I’m guessing that Gavin did not actually read the paper or he would know (yes or no) if it had been presented as measured data.
—http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/09/resignations-retractions-and-the-process-of-science/
…
Andrew30 says:
6 Sep 2011 at 10:50 PM
Was the Physical Data from the Remote Sensors in the Satellites that was used in the Spencer and Braswell paper correct?
Were the Remote Sensors operating correctly?
Was the Physical Data recorded correct?
Did the paper present the Measured Physical Data as Actual Measured Data?
Did the Data show that the amount of energy leaving the system was greater that any of the computer simulation indicated?
Actual measured data.
P.S. CLOUD
[Response: Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, no. – gavin]

Oh com on Mike. Really? What is your point? Are you suggesting that the consensus has merit because you can dispute the examples KevinK used? I’ll leave it to KevinK to defend his own examples, in the meantime how about tackling this list for us:
o blood letting cures all sorts of diseases.
o if you throw a woman into the water and she doesn’t drown, it means she is a witch.
o Bumps on people’s heads are a way to measure their intelligence and diagnose personality issues.
o warts are something you can get from touching toads
o the reason you can “see” is that your eyes emit rays. Before you jump all over that one because it was “before the scientific method was invented” let me advise that this piece of idiocy came from Euclid, one of the greatest scientists of all time.
o the body has four fluids in it, phlegm, blood, black bile and yellow bile. Sure, it was a theory advanced 400 years BC, before your prescious scientific method. On the other hand, the guy who came up with it was Hippocrates, and his theory was the consensus until the 18th century.
o the quartz movement would never result in a good time piece. Every watchmaker in Switzerland said so, and at the time, the Swiss had over 75% of the world’s watch making market. The Swiss inventor nearly gave up as the consensus was over whelming. Seiko in Japan turned out to be more interested in how it worked than in the consensus.
Let me know when you are done with those? I can come up with a couple dozenmore if needed.

Mike says:
September 6, 2011 at 8:52 pm
@ KevinK, September 5, 2011 at 7:57 pm
“However I am aware of NUMEROUS historic examples where the widely accepted “consensus” turned out to be completely WRONG;
1) Stomach Ulcers are caused by stress and spicy foods
…
1. It was a widely held belief. I could be wrong, but I don’t think it was claimed that this was scientifically proven, just that it just seemed like the most plausible explanation. Diet and stress can aggravate an ulcer so the recommended treatment was at least somewhat helpful. See http://www.cdc.gov/ulcer/history.htm and note the where word consensus appears.

Bah. The researcher was blackballed from publication for a decade, and refused research funding. Only by publicly giving himself the helicobacter, getting ulcers (much faster than he expected!) and rapidly curing himself with a course of antibiotics, was he able to break the wall of silence. A few years earlier I had mentioned his hypothesis to a sister-in-law, a nurse in the field, and she went up one side of me and down the other, referring to all the experts she worked with and the medical consensus. Later, after his treatment was named “Standard of Care” by the NIH et al., she has been much more polite and tolerant.

What a tempest in a tea-pot! The simplest explanation is that the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence shows rather clearly that the theory that human emission of CO2 is causing “global warming / climate change” is one of the greatest frauds in the history of science. It was not just a simple error of judgment, but was and continues to be, a malevolent fraud. For details go to the recent book “Slaying the Sky Dragon -Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory”, published this year by Stairway Press.
Spencer is doing a good job, but he is merely nibbling around the edges. To give the theory its well deserved death, one must drive a stake through its heart!
Dr. Martin Hertzberg

@davidmhoffer
You are confusing popular beliefs and pre-scientific ideas with scientific work. Modern science began around the 1600s with Galileo and Bacon.
@Brian H
Bah to you too. It took time for the germ theory of ulcers get be accepted. It took time for the CO2 theory of climate change to be accepted. The same is true of plate tectonics and evolution. You think we should turn back the clock?
Modern science is not perfect of course. It, like democracy, is merely better than the alternatives.

Mike:
At September 7, 2011 at 8:30 am you say;
“Modern science is not perfect of course. It, like democracy, is merely better than the alternatives.”
I completely agree. And it is why I and many others want Trenberth, Hansen, Mann, Briffa, Schmidt, et al. to abandon their practices of ‘climate science’ and to adopt the practice of science.
Richard

Mike says:
September 7, 2011 at 8:30 am
@Brian H
Bah to you too. It took time for the germ theory of ulcers get be accepted. It took time for the CO2 theory of climate change to be accepted. The same is true of plate tectonics and evolution. You think we should turn back the clock?
Modern science is not perfect of course. It, like democracy, is merely better than the alternatives.

Where, in the protocols of “science”, does blackballing and refusal to fund challenges to a dominant theory/hypothesis (note your own admission that diet mod etc. was just a make-do effort, without genuine evidence) come in? Read some Feynman. These are deeply anti-scientific practices, which are nonetheless accepted practice in many fields — medicine most notoriously, but climate science most egregiously.
(BTW, my father was “treated” for ulcers for decades, up to and including having the Vagus nerve to the stomach severed “to reduce the excess acid”. The treatments succeeded only in compounding his misery. If the Warren-Marshall protocol had been given a fair and objective hearing when proposed and preliminary evidence presented, he might have had a decade or more of pain-free life before he died in the ’90s. )

Mike wrote a few things about my post regarding five specific failed consensuses.
My small little list was not intended as a “history of science”, but rather some observations about the results that occur from strongly held consensuses. Or, as others have termed the phenomena; “herd mentality”, “group think” or “mob emotions”.
I do admit my cold fusion example was relatively quickly debunked, but NOT BEFORE a huge group think phenomena where everybody was waxing about all the free energy we were going to have. I know, I watched it.
Perhaps if some folks had listened to some of the ”crackpots” about the flaws in the “Earth’s Greenhouse Effect” earlier this whole sad debacle of several wasted decades (not to mention all the money WASTED) would have been avoided. All the signs where there; empirical evidence from Dr. Wood (early 1900’s) that showed the “Greenhouse Effect (i.e. backradiation) does not cause higher temperatures.
Regarding the stomach ulcer example, there was indeed a strong consensus (scientific or clinical) that the cures were diet modifications and/or surgery. When some “crackpots” posited other causes the consensus fought back strongly in a manner very reminiscent of the actions of the “warmist” camp.
Regarding the lobotomy, Mike wrote;
“They Worked”,
WELL….. I guess that is totally a matter of perspective isn’t it. They worked for who ? The patients ? Or the persons tasked with caring for the patients ? The “doctor” that perfected the lobotomy was awarded a Nobel Prize because he made the lobotomy “simple”. At the time the hospitals housing persons with mental afflictions’ did not normally have operating rooms with anesthesia facilities. The “perfection” of the operation was designing what was basically a fancy screwdriver that was jammed up above the eye socket to server nerve bundles in the brain. This enabled a quick easy “fix” for mental problems.
After a while the easy availability of this operation led to it’s over application. The consensus was that it could fix behavior problems which we now consider just a little bit off of normal. Who really knows how many patients really benefited from the operation, if any ?
So, in summary my post was regarding the flaws of relying on consensus as a means of determining the truth. Consensus has no place in science, and since “climate science” relies on it so much, I long ago discarded “climate science” to a religious belief.
Oh, BTW, they say that sharks only bite surfers as a taste test, they don’t like the way they taste and don’t prey on them. So it “works” for the shark, but that little distinction is usually lost on the surfer.
Cheers, Kevin.

Brian,
I am sorry your father suffered so much. My father is in almost constant back pain and doctors have not been much help. Most medical doctors are not scientists. They study a good deal of science but they are practitioners not researchers for the most part. Had they been quicker to accept the scientific evidence for germs causing ulcers your father and many others would have suffered less. Today scientists have found that we are causing dangerous changes to Earth’s climate and ocean systems through our emissions of GHG and deforestation. Some people don’t want to accept the evidence. They are reluctant to give up old ways of thinking. And unfortunately powerful financial interests have a stake in promoting denial. Thus, we have delayed taking action that could forestall a great deal of suffering. Read the CDC link on the history on ulcer treatment and think about the parallels with what is happening today. Good luck to you.http://www.cdc.gov/ulcer/history.htm

Mike wrote;
“Today scientists have found that we are causing dangerous changes to Earth’s climate and ocean systems through our emissions of GHG and deforestation.”
Sorry, but the scientists have not shown this to be true. They have hypothesized it and programmed their computers to demonstrate it. But they have not ”found” it to be true. See my examples of FAILED CONSENSUSES.
“Some people don’t want to accept the evidence.”
Sorry, but the alleged evidence is no better than paper thin.
“They are reluctant to give up old ways of thinking.”
I have no problem with “giving up old ways of thinking”, but my examples of failed consensuses are just some examples of the “old ways of thinking”.
“And unfortunately powerful financial interests have a stake in promoting denial.”
Well, I have never received my check from the “powerful financial interests” for posting here. I
deny the existence of the “dangerous changes to Earth’s climate” caused by the “greenhouse effect” because of my engineering experience including training in heat transfer and the behavior of optical radiation (i.e. backradiation).
It is indeed sad that you must resort to using the derogatory term “denial” instead of making a sound scientific case……………
To Brian, I am indeed sorry that your father suffered needlessly from the “old way” of thinking about ulcers. I also had some honored family members that had similar experiences.
Again, be very suspicious of anybody that justifies their “scientific” claims via consensus.
Cheers, Kevin.

Yes, it’s quite hilarious that Mike and other Warmistas want to appropriate the cloak of the suppressed and underfunded iconoclastic researcher, when they have been squatting and battening on the greatest bonanza of research dollars ever to elevate second-raters to global scientific prominence in the history of mankind.
Disingenuous witless hypocrisy, thy name is Climate Science.

Did either of you (Brian or Kevin) actually read the CDC link?
“1994
A National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference concludes that there is a strong association between H. pylori and ulcer disease, and recommends that ulcer patients with H. pylori infection be treated with antibiotics.” http://www.cdc.gov/ulcer/history.htm
You see consensus statements are a routine part of scientific practice. Here is a consensus statement from the American Meteorological Society:
“Despite the uncertainties noted above, there is adequate evidence from observations and interpretations of climate simulations to conclude that the atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; that humans have significantly contributed to this change; and that further climate change will continue to have important impacts on human societies, on economies, on ecosystems, and on wildlife through the 21st century and beyond. Focusing on the next 30 years, convergence among emission scenarios and model results suggest strongly that increasing air temperatures will reduce snowpack, shift snowmelt timing, reduce crop production and rangeland fertility, and cause continued melting of the ice caps and sea level rise. Important goals for future work include the need to understand the relation of climate at the state and regional level to the patterns of global climate and to reverse the decline in observational networks that are so critical to accurate climate monitoring and prediction.
Policy choices in the near future will determine the extent of the impacts of climate change. Policy decisions are seldom made in a context of absolute certainty. Some continued climate change is inevitable, and the policy debate should also consider the best ways to adapt to climate change. Prudence dictates extreme care in managing our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life.”http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2007climatechange.html

Bah. That 1994 statement came AFTER all the attempts to squelch the h.p. research failed. Try the NIH statements of the 1980s. That’s when W&W were trying to get past the gatekeepers.
And ST*U with the “Precautionary (‘prudent’) Principle” nonsense. The weighted risk and cost of warming harm is minuscule; the weighted risk of mitigation policies (gutting the global energy economy) is huge. Only the terminally stupid or malign will choose the former.

Brian,
You are very good at spewing insults and making assertions without evidence and not at much else. But maybe some thoughtful readers will see the paralell between the dangers of ignoring medical science and climate science.

Clueless. The “parallel” (note spelling) is between abuse and evasion of the scientific method for monetary and power reasons, as practiced both in the medical profession and almost universally in climate science.
The Jackasses of All Sciences, Masters of None that make up the field of climatology are regarded as contemptibly arrogant amateurs in statistics, modelling, physics, programming and forecasting by those who actually know those fields.

But didn’t Spencer say this about his “minor” error: “I think when we made that correction, I, if I’m remembering correctly, I think we went from a cooling trend to a slight warming trend. And ever since then it’s been a warming trend, actually by sort of ever increasing amounts”.
Doesn’t sound too “minor” to me!

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